Glitter In the Air
by Saerus2665
Summary: After breaking up with his tyrannical and absolutely insane girlfriend, Nikolai finds that maybe it's time to do some soul searching. Fortunately for him, the new Romanian transfer student came just in time to help. High school! BulgariaXRomania YAOI
1. Chapter 1

**So, new story here. It might continue, it might not, idk. It all depends on it I randomly fail at writing again :P. **

**This is mainly Romania and Bulgaria, but there's going to be Serbia and Bosnia in later chapters (Later chapters? Wut?). But uuuuumm. Highschool fic, nothing too violent and I do not own Hetalia.**

…**.s'about it bro's…enjoy.**

**Chapter 1. Meetings and Tyrants**

"She's yelling at me again," Nikolai noted dully, watching his girlfriend yell furiously at him, even though the headphones in his ears were plainly obvious and playing music so loud it should be almost impossible to not hear the music. 'Why is she still yelling?'

This wasn't the first time Milica had yelled at him, obviously. She yelled at him for random shit at least every week or so, more often twice a week than once actually.

'Sheesh, she's really red in the face. I wonder if she's going to pass out again.'

Milica was beautiful, her ice blue eyes and medium length, silvery-gray hair tended to draw the boys in the school like flies. But most of the time she was dumped within days because of her batshit insane attitude. One thing done wrong spelt hell for anyone dating her. She was demanding, commanding and really good at reprimanding.

Nikolai had never been told about this, and he had been new to the school, so naturally, he'd been drawn to the pretty and seemingly sane girl. It had taken one day for him to realize she was completely insane, but yet they'd been dating for at least three months.

Milica reached over and yanked Nikolai's head phones out of his ear, apparently finally caring whether he heard her or not.

"Do you even want to date me? Why the fuck aren't you listening to me you asshole! Are you cheating on me! ANSWER ME!"

Nikolai wasn't shocked in the least by her venomous and demanding tone of voice-he'd grown used to it. Apparently the people walking down the hall hadn't, because they were doing a variety of things like walking quickly by, staring at them, or the few that knew Milica, just walked by and muttered things like 'psycho' and 'insane.'

"Milica people are starin-."

"I DON'T FUCKING CARE IF PEOPLE ARE STARING. FUCK OFF AND SHUT UP!" Milica warned loudly.

Nikolai didn't even flinch when she lashed out and wrapped her hand around the collar of his polo, yanking him foreword as she shouted. 'God, she's really mad this time,' he thought as she glared vehemently at him. He decided this was not a good time to point out the fact that she'd just contradicted herself by demanding him to speak and then telling him to shut up.

Milica was shouting again, this time beginning to go on about how rude he was to her and how he didn't appreciate her. 'She truly is insane.'

Milica could have gone on for hours, probably would have too if Miles hadn't appeared.

Miles was fairly tall for his age, towering above almost everyone in the school besides the Swedish and Scottish foreign exchange students. He was Milica's younger brother, but no one could really tell. He towered over her like everyone else. He had hair like Milica's, only shorter and a shade darker, and his eyes looked like hers too except they were darker as well.

Nikolai had to conclude he liked miles since he was the one that had saved him countless times from the wrath of his sister. He probably wouldn't even be alive if he hadn't intervened on some of the things he had.

"Milica, get to class before you get detention again," Miles said, monotonously. He never really was gifted in expressing emotion. Nikolai didn't now if that was intentional or if he had just lived with Milica for so long during his childhood the ability to feel anything other than utter misery was lost.

'Okay, maybe that was a bit harsh.'

Milica glared darkly at her brother, but still let go of Nikolai's collar, knowing enough by now that in a fight between her and her brother the odds weren't entirely against him.

Miles didn't even raise an eyebrow at Milica's death glare, and instead turned on his heel and walked back down the hall, disappearing into the flow students. The number of them in the hallway had increased now that it was so close to the time for homeroom to begin.

"Fine, whatever Nikolai, just forget it. Are you going to wait for me after my class or are you such an ass that you can't remember where the fuck it is again?"

'Oh yeah, that's what this entire thing was about wasn't it. I forgot to wait for her after her last class yesterday and then his phone died. She'd thought he'd been ignoring her….again.'

Nikolai sighed and said that he'd be there.

Milica smiled for the first time that day and when Nikolai saw it the only thing he could think was 'Fake!Fake!Fake!'. Milica then gave him a quick peck on the cheek before going off to her classroom, acting as if the past few minutes of her shouting in his face weren't even relevant.

Nikolai sighed and put his headphones back in before heading down the hall. 'God, she's insane. Why do I even put up with this?'

Nikolai opened the door to his homeroom and went inside, sitting down in his desk in the front of the room. He hadn't really any idea why his teacher put him there. He was an almost straight A student. 'It's probably because of my missing work. I never do my work for this class' Nikolai thought, and it was true. His book for this class was just so heavy. He hated dragging it home. So he did what he could in class and if it didn't get done then, it never did.

"Hello!"

Nikolai looked up as he set his bag down on the floor next to him.

Earlier in the year, a senior who'd failed this mandatory class three times, had sat across from him. His name was Ivan Braginski, he was Russian, and supposedly had killed a man before.

Nikolai had no idea how true that was, but he found that it wasn't as unbelievable with Ivan as it should have been.

Across from Ivan had been where a small shy Lithuanian boy, Toris, sat. The two of them had gotten along about as well as a mouse trapped in a bag with a cat.

Apparently shit had gotten out of hand with the two of them and Toris' sassy and impeccably annoying boyfriend, Felicks, had reported Ivan for harassment.

Some more shit went down and Ivan wound up being removed from all of Toris' classes.

So the seat across from him had been empty for the past quarter.

But now, in the seat sat a blonde man wearing a cat-like grin across his face as he looked at Nikolai.

'Damn, what's up with his eyes. There like…red.' "Hello," Nikolai said in a voice that implied he had no intention of continuing the conversation.

Implication must not have been the newcomer's strong suit, as he continued talking in a light and nearly sickeningly cheerful voice.

"My name is Adrian! I just moved here."

"I honestly don't care," Nikolai sighed. Well, he wasn't exactly known for his politeness throughout the school. In fact it was pretty much the opposite. He hardly had any friends. And if he had to call anyone his best friend, it would be Miles since he wasn't going to give that title to his tyrant of a girlfriend.

'I'm a lonely person.'

"Oh, sorry. I just thought you'd want to know more about me." Adrian said, his tone of voice not changing in the least, obviously expecting Nikolai to turn around and engage in conversation immediately.

Nikolai ignored him, figuring if he did so, he'd stop talking.

Nikolai was sadly mistaken.

* * *

><p>Ten painful minutes later, Nikolai was ready to leap across the gap between their desks and shank Adrian in the windpipe with his pencil. 'Why the hell is he even talking to me? No one talks to me.'<p>

Nikolai remembered then that Adrian had just moved here. So he had no idea who was who in this high school.

'Whatever, it's not my problem to fucking teach him.' Nikolai thought bitterly after contemplating if he should inform Adrian of everything about this school's society. He decided against it because he didn't want to encourage Adrian's attempt to start conversations with him.

Luckily for Adrian's windpipe, and most importantly Nikolai's pencil, the teacher came into the room and began class.

About halfway through the class, Nikolai noticed that Adrian had shut up and was now feverishly taking notes. He'd already filled out two pages and it had only been five minutes into the lesson.

'What the hell? No one else even gives a flying shit about this class,' Nikolai thought, wondering what the hell Adrian was taking notes on as the teacher was simply reviewing the homework, which Nikolai had not done, and possible questions on the quiz tomorrow. He figured it must have been notes on the quiz, and that set him content for a few moments, but then he realized that Adrian could not possibly be taking the quiz tomorrow since he just came here today.

The bell finally rang signaling the hour was over and Nikolai had to force every bit of himself into obedience to not turn towards Adrian and demand what the hell he was taking notes on.

'Why the hell is this bothering me so much? It's just notes.'

Nikolai sighed as he put his headphones back in. He was just about to turn his music on when he realized Adrian had come over to his desk and was talking to him again. Nikolai wondered how long he'd been talking because Adrian was talking in the middle of a seemingly random sentence.

'…going into nursing. I know it's a little girlish but I just love hanging out with children. What are you going into?"

Nikolai looked at Adrian incredulously, wondering what the other man was talking about.

"You don't like to talk a lot, do you?" Adrian continued, taking Nikolai's look against him.

'Good god, he's the slowest person on the planet' "No, not really. Is there any reason why you're still here?" Nikolai asked, standing up and picking his bag up off of the floor, slipping in over his shoulder where he usually carried it.

"Well, I just wanted to talk to you. I just got here, and I wanted to make friends…." Adrian said slowly, finally sensing the small (incredibly obvious) amount of disdain in Nikolai's glare.

"Too bad, I already have friends. And they don't have freakishly long canine teeth or hair," Nikolai said. In truth, Adrian's canines weren't that long, they were just a little sharp, it was natural and Nikolai had only said that to get him to shut up and leave him alone. Basically the same thing about his hair, it was actually kind of cool the way it curved just above his left eye. But once again, it was probably the only way to get him to leave him alone.

Adrian face looked a lot more shocked than Nikolai had expected, then it turned guarded, and a little hurt. "Oh, um, sorry…I just wanted to make…friends."

Nikolai felt like he'd just kicked a puppy. "Look, I-you…you just don't want to be friends with me, you'll understand why when you get used to things around here." Nikolai sighed, pushing his hands into the pockets of his school uniform jacket. 'Or my girlfriend.'

Before giving Adrian a chance to respond, Nikolai walked past him and left the room to go to his next class.

He was halfway there when he realized…

"NIKOLAI! YOU FUCKING BULGARIAN ASSHOLE!"

Milica was pushing through people as she stormed up to him, her ice blue eyes set in the death glare that he'd grown all too familiar to seeing.

"Oh god." Nikolai mumbled under his breath, wondering if he could just turn and run and get away with it. He decided against it and stayed where he was, running would only make it worse.

"I asked you to do one thing! And that's to fucking walk me to three of my classes during day. And you can't even fucking manage that. What the hell? Do you even care about this relationshi-.'

Nikolai, who'd zoned out when Milica had been yelling, looked up as a quiet, yet familiar voice interrupted Milica. His eyes went wide as, Adrian began speaking slowly.

"It's not his fault…I was just…I needed Nikolai to point out my next class. I'm new here and…yeah." Adrian trailed off as he noticed Milica's look. It was a mix between boredom and annoyance.

"You're knew here? Ho, boy, you have a lot to learn around here if you want to keep from dying." Milica said in a cruel and condescending voice.

She was referring to the unspoken rule Nikolai and everyone around her tended to follow: never interrupt an argument between Milica and anyone else. Obviously Adrian's lack of knowledge in the subject was pissing her off.

"We need to get to class…" Nikolai began slowly after a few moments of Milica glaring expectantly at Adrian who was avoiding meeting her gaze and shifting uncomfortable underneath it.

Milica nodded after a moment, casting a lingering glare at him before turning back towards Nikolai.

'Damn, she's still pissed.' Nikolai thought, registering the warning look in Milica's eyes as she placed her hand in his and began walking down the hall. Her grip was strong and tight, only a small sign of the anger Milica was still obviously feeling.

"Look, I'm sorry. I really did get caught up with things, he kind of just started talking to me out of the blue."

Milica cast him one of her signature glares that read 'I'm going to be pissed at you no matter what you say.'

Nikolai just moved his gaze away from hers, deciding that right now it was just best to let Milica be mad.

'Dammit. Just when I thought we'd have an almost nice day today…'

At the end of the hall, still standing outside of his last classroom, Adrian looked after Nikolai, feeling a little shut down and sad that his first attempt to make friends had gone so awfully bad. He knew that he'd just made things worse between Nikolai and his girlfriend, even though he'd just been trying to help. He didn't really know how he'd done that, but that was irrelevant because he had. Adrian recalled Nikolai's comment about not being his friend just before he'd left the classroom.

'If he really meant that, I guess he must be weird too right?' Adrian thought slowly, shifting his weight as he thoughts drifted.

A shoulder slammed into his and Adrian was sent stumbling foreword, the person that hit him cursing loudly and telling him to stop being shit-headed and learn to walk.

Adrian apologized, even though the other person had walked away and began scrambling to grab his things off the floor so he could get to his next class on time.

"So far, this school sucks, Mom."

**Shawabababa…**

**yes, that is supposed to say Mom at the end, that'll be explained in later chapters.  
><strong>

**Eh, I don't know what to do about this…I might continue. Quite lately I've found it getting harder and harder to find things to write about..hrm. Anyway, as far as I know, this is going to be my new project. **

**So tell me what you think, should I kill it? Focus my entire life on it? Cant get better unless you tell me what's wrong. **


	2. Chapter 2

**GAH! I'm so nervous to post this…..**

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed! It was majority awesome, I freaked out about everyone of them :3. So, someone asked if Romania was really taking notes in class. The answer to that will be explained a bit later.**

**So far, I have plans to have chapter 3 up by this weekend.**

**Aaaaaand….hmm…nope that's about all I can remember to address at the moment. Hope you enjoy this one, and sorry if this entire things seems to be moving at a snail's pace, I apologize for that…I'm either a really rushed writer or a really slow one.**

**So, enjoy….**

* * *

><p>Nikolai leaned against a pole on the train, ignoring how difficult it was to stay standing as the train rocked and went over bumps. The movements did bother him but he cared more about the fact he was attempting to text his thoroughly enraged girlfriend, who'd just sent him a text threatening to set his house aflame.<p>

'She's really pissed this time.'

_**'Look, I'm sorry. I didn't hear what she said until you got mad. I was talking with Miles,' **_Bulgaria sent back. He had, in fact, heard what was said and just had hoped to get away from getting involved in the conversation.

Wrong choice, obviously.

_**'So now I have to get mad before you decide to stick up for me? What the hell kind of bullshit is that!'**_

'It was kind of true...'

'Kinda' was the understatement of the century there. Vladamira, Miles' girlfriend, had merely pointed out that Milica was just being a demanding, moody, bitch. Vladamira was the only one who ever actually gave Milica what she dished out right back at her. The only notable physical difference between the two was that Vladamira's hair was more of a dull-gray in contrast to that of Milica's and Croatia's, and was a good two feet longer than Milica's. The most notable social difference was that Vladamira actually acted sane towards her boyfriend and everyone else in the school. Nikolai had decided at the lunch table in a spout of rebellion, that he was now regretting, that if Milica didn't like it then she should change how she acted, not how he responded.

Of course he had never told her that to her face, and never would tell her that. And after having time to lose his little rebellious attitude, he instead replied with:

_**'No, I just have to be paying attention. I already apologized. I really am sorry.'**_

As soon as he put his phone in his pocket it began ringing with an incoming call. He didn't have to check to know it was Milica. No one else ever called him.

Nikolai waited until the call went through before taking out his phone and turning it off. 'That'll piss her off even more, but I don't want to hear it ringing all the way home and there's no way she'll stop calling until I answer if it goes through,' Nikolai thought bitterly, moving aside a bit so another person could grab onto the rail he had been leaning on.

It took Nikolai only a moment to realize the blonde next to him was the same annoying bastard he'd met in his first hour.

'Dont look at me. Ignore me. Ignor-.'

"Oh, hey Nikolai! I didn't know you rode the train home."

Nikolai cringed as Adrian began speaking in that sickeningly cheerful voice, going on about how the last time he rode the train he'd gotten off at the wrong stop and wound up walking over three miles home.

Nikolai contemplated getting off the train and just walking home from the next stop.

'My home's too far away from here….I won't make it before dark.'

Nikolai picked the lesser of the two evils and stayed on the train as it slowed to a stop and let people off. Unfortunately not too many seats were opened up by the people getting off at the unpopular stop and they were quickly filled by people tired of standing. Nikolai glared as a man, who had walked onto the train at the last stop, immediately sprang for one of the few empty seats.

'Selfish asshole..' Nikolai thought darkly, shifting his own tired and numbing legs.

"So where do you get off at? Wouldn't it be funny if we got off at the same stop? I live over on.."

'My god, doesn't this idiot realize I'm ignoring him? I haven't said two words to him since he started speaking. Actually, I haven't even spoken to him since he got on the train...Asshole…' Nikolai let his eyes fall shut to hide the dark glare he'd been giving the chatty boy, hoping he'd shut up once he did. Nikolai's eyebrow began twitching a bit as the blonde continued ranting on and on about his past experiences with trains.

'SHUT THE HELL UP!'

Nikolai was ready to stab Adrian for the second time that day when the train began to slow and the automated voice came on over the speaker.

"_Bethalto Station. Please stand clear as the doors close."_

"-and once I got there.. Oh, this is my stop. It was nice seeing you Nikolai, I'll see you in class tomorrow! I'll finish my story then."

'Oh god. Can I just die now,' he thought bitterly, refusing to address Adrian as he got off the bus and wondering if there was still time for him to change his first hour class. Only when he'd left the bus did Nikolai notice that this station was in the extremely dangerous part of town. Only seriously shady people lived here so what the hell was someone who went to his school doing getting off in this shit hole? Adrian didn't look badly dressed or stereotypically poor in the least. As a matter of fact, his hair seemed to resemble that of girls he _knew_ spent hours doing their hair before school.

'Idiot probably got off at the wrong stop,' Nikolai thought, rolling his eyes as the doors closed and the train began moving again.

Nikolai moved to sit in a seat that had been freed up, but stopped when a very large and very scary looking man who'd gotten on the train at the last station gave him a look that threatened to tear him in half with his bear hands, before looking down at the seat Nikolai was about to take.

"Sorry.." Nikolai couldn't help but mutter the apology as he moved back to his pole. He stayed there the rest of the train ride. It was odd, but for the rest of the train ride he didn't think more than twice about his girlfriend and instead was heavily pondering why the hell Adrian got off at Bethalto and not in some respectable area of town. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't shake his curiosity over the matter.

"_Huntsville station. Last stop of the day. Stand back while the doors open."_

The sun was already on it's way down as Nikolai made his way down the street towards his house which was a small, rundown and quite dingy looking townhouse sandwiched in between two others just like it. It wasn't that he was poor, not in the least. His brother was just a scrooge and didn't spend money on anything other than beer and food.

It was cold outside, but not nearly as cold as it should be this time of the year-a month before spring officially started.

'Looks like rain... I'll have to bring some of the plants in,' Nikolai thought, looking up at the quite dreary looking sky and thinking about his quaint little garden he kept in his backyard.

"Oi! Nikolai! You got your house key? I gave mine to Kat."

'Of course you did you whipped asshole.'

"Yes, I have mine. I thought I told you to stop giving your key to people. I'm getting tired of changing the locks every time you break up with someone." Nikolai said, walking past his brother up the front stairs to their door.

Alesander was twenty one years old and had been taking care of Nikolai ever since they moved to the states for school. He had brown hair that was slightly longer and slightly messier that Nikolai's, and had brown eyes that matched Nikolai's exactly. He was nearly half a foot taller than Nikolai, and rubbed it in any chance he got. Alesander had graduated from Nikolai's high school two years ago and was now working as a secretary for a law firm in town. It was weird living with someone only five years older than you and still having to follow them like a parent, but Nikolai had learned to deal with it.

"I tried to call you but your phone was off. Trouble with the psychopathic girlfriend?" Alesander asked, standing behind Nikolai as he unlocked the front door to their apartment.

"Watch it, you'll wind up locked out all night," Nikolai growled in response, not even bothering to give Alesander the benefit of the doubt that he was just being conversational with him. Alesander had made fun of him for his relationship with Milica from the day he found out about it, and he brought it up any chance he got to do so.

"Whatever pipsqueak, like you could keep me out of the house. You can barely shut your own window without my help."

'That's because you bought a shitty house because it was cheap and next door to your girlfriend at the time.' "Whatever, did you already eat or do you want me to make something?" Nikolai offered, having to throw his weight against the door to get it open since it had an uncanny ability to get jammed every other day.

"Naw, I already ate with Kat. She's so nice, why don't you get a real girl like her? She has a sister you know."

"Yeah, no thank you. Milica's perfectly fine." 'Well, at least she's not batshit insane like Natalia.' Nikolai thought, taking off his backpack and putting his key back in his front pocket before going to the kitchen to get something to eat.

"Oh come on, Natalia isn't that bad," Alesander said as he flopped down lazily on the couch and turned on their very old and very cheap television.

"She's in love with her brother," Nikolai replied evenly, "How is that not that bad?"

He opened one the cabinets to get a cup for his water and cursed as the door fell right off the hinges and toppled to the ground. "Dammit Al, I thought you fixed this?"

Alesander waved his hand in dismissal, " I never said that I fixed it. I just stuck the door back on this morning so you'd stop bitching at me about it. I meant to do it before you got home, but I got caught up with…"

Nikolai stopped listening and just stepped over the broken door to the fridge to get his water before going upstairs.

"Hey, come watch TV with me!" Alesander whined, turning towards Nikolai as he went upstairs.

"Homework," Nikolai replied shortly without realizing he'd left his backpack downstairs.

Nikolai lay in his bed. Half asleep half awake as thunder rattled the panes on his window and lightening lit up his room every few minuets.

He hated storms. He had no idea why, he just did. He thought briefly about going to get his plants from outside, but then decided against it as another crack of lightening came followed by a loud rumble of thunder. He'd forgotten to get them while talking to Alesander this afternoon and hadn't felt like going back down there to do so since Katyusha came over and there wasn't a very high chance that they were just playing chess down there.

Since he knew he was not going to be able to go back to sleep, Nikolai decided that maybe it was time to respond to Milica. After all, maybe she'd calm down after six hours.

'Tch, wishful thinking.'

Using the blue glow of his alarm clock, which read two twenty-seven, Nikolai found his phone. He flipped it open and turned it back on.

Immediately it began to vibrate with signals from numerous messages, everyone of them from Milica.

'_**Answer your phone you bastard!' 4:13**_

'_**Are you ignoring me!' 4:15**_

'_**You turned your phone off again didn't you?' 4:20**_

'_**NIKOLAI, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! THE NEXT TIME I SEE YOU, YOU BETTER BE READY TO RUN LIKE HELL!' 5:02**_

'_**THAT'S IT! I'M COMING OVER THERE!' 5:36**_

'I had to tell her where I live…' Nikolai thought bitterly, wondering where Milica was as the last few messages came through his phone, all of them in all caps until he last one. The last one made Nikolai sit up a bit in bed to read it, not trusting what his eyes were seeing at the moment as he read it.

'_**Nikolai, I don't see what the point in our relationship is anymore. It's more than obvious I make you completely miserable. I feel like I've known since we first began going out that it wasn't going to work. I know you think I'm crazy and insane, but that's just how I am. Obviously you don't plan on coming to terms with that anytime soon and I have no plans to change anytime soon either, so I think it's best we stop confusing people and just get on with our lives.'**_

Nikolai had to read her message two times to make sure it was actually what he was reading before he processed what Milica had texted.

'It's kind of weird…I don't feel sad at all,' he thought to himself, locking his phone and setting it down on his bedside table.

"_Do you even want to date me?"_ Milica had demanded this morning.

'No…I'm not sad….just…'

Nikolai lay back down on his bed, and stared up at the ceiling. Lightning still was flashing outside every few seconds, but Nikolai found that he really didn't care as much about it.

'Lonely….'

Now that Milica and he had broken up, that also broke off his friendship with Miles.

Nikolai was absolutely alone.

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry for not telling you in the first chapter but Milica is an OC, Serbia. I created her when I started writing the 100-prompt challenge so if your curious about her than I guess you could wait a few chapters or look at her character in that…it's pretty much the same.<strong>

**Vladamira is also an OC and so is Miles. They're Slovenia and Croatia.**

**And Alesander isn't a country, he's just here for story purposes…everyone say 'hi Alesander'. :3**

**You probably already figured out who Kat was by the Natalia talk. I couldn't figure out which name to use for Belarus as I've seen it as Natalia, Natascha, Natasha, Natalie, and Natalya. The same thing with Ukraine, who's Kat or Katyusha (am I spelling that right? I believe so, I cant find it anywhere). **

**Milica will probably fade out of the picture as the story goes on, I do have plans for her in later chapters, but this story is mainly going to be focused around Bulgaria and Romania (Nikolai and Adrian)**

**Thanks bunches for reading!**

**~Alicia**


	3. Chapter 3

**So, pretty big chapter, both plot-wise and lengthwise. I probably not going to include much more of Milica or her family after this one and it'll start focusing more on Romania and Bulgaria.**

**I was writing this all weekend from my phone, it was kind of funny because every time my step mom made me put down the phone I got a really good idea.**

**So here's the next chapter. **

**Oh, small advertisement here: Chibi-excel's story **_**Love Is an Art **_**is the epitome of adorable and you should all go and read it…after you read this of course… :P**

**Okay, go fourth reader and find out what horrible things happen when you break up with psychotic people!**

'Why am I so tired today?' Nikolai thought as woke up to the sound of his alarm clock, feeling more tired than he usually did in the morning and not understanding why until he got up to turn off his alarm clock.

'Oh yeah, that's right.' Nikolai remembered. He turned his phone back on after retrieving it from his night table, wondering if Milica had gone back on her statement after he'd fallen asleep.

Nikolai frowned a bit when just his lock screen came up, showing no text messages.

'I don't know why I was so hopeful she'd been joking…' Nikolai thought tossing his phone onto his bed and beginning to change into his school uniform. He decided to go with the winter outfit today as last night's storm had most likely made it colder.

Nikolai had finished pulling his pants on when he heard someone knocking on his door.

"Yeah, what do you want?" Nikolai called searching for his school tie. 'What could Alesander possibly want this early in the morning? He usually isn't up until right before I leave.'

"Hey Nikolai. Do you want some eggs and toast for breakfast?"

'Oh, that's right. Kat probably stayed here last night.

"No, I need to get to school." Nikolai called in response, finishing getting dressed and going to his mirror to try and make some type of sense out of his messy bed-hair.

"Oh, okay then. Have a nice day at school. Your brother's out greeting the new neighbors. Do you need money for lunch?" Kat replied.

"No, I'm okay." Nikolai called in response.

"Okay." Katyusha called back before she left.

'Sheesh, I didn't think anyone would buy that house next to us. It's more of a piece of shit than this place is.'

The former owner of the house next to them had been a creepy old man, who'd been unable to take care of the place. He had constantly wandered into Nikolai's garden while Nikolai was working on it and struck up the strangest conversations with him. He always found the oddest things to guilt-trip Nikolai into doing for him inside his house. And maybe it was Nikolai just being paranoid but all of the man's lawn chairs were pointed so they had a direct view inside of Nikolai and Alesander's living room. It was pretty unsettleling. But he'd moved into assisted living recently so the house had been vacant for a few months. Nikolai had been convinced the thing would never sell, it still gave off a creepy essence even though the former owner had moved out.

Alesander had been talking to another neighbor the other day, a Dutch man with a tulip garden that was to die for, about buying the house and expanding both of their houses into it. They'd never settled on a price with the landlord however, and apparently, it was too late.

Nikolai ran his fingers through his hair a few times before deciding it looked presentable enough for the public.

Nikolai pulled his jacket on over his sweater and headed downstairs so he could get out of the house and to the train station on time to catch the 8 o'clock train to town.

As he walked down the stairs outside his house, Nikolai was almost flattened by a bicycle that seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

'Ow! What the fuck?" Nikolai demanded as he fell to the ground, his phone and backpack both landing on the ground next to him.

"Oh hey, sorry about that!"

Nikolai paused, recognizing the familiar voice before looking up and meeting the grinning face of..

"Adrian? What the fuck are you doing at my house?" Nikolai shouted before he could stop himself.

Adrian was wearing his school uniform as well, his blue blazer slung over his left arm and his backpack sitting in the bike-basket behind him. He was looking down at Nikolai with a mix of apology and concern at first, but when Nikolai started speaking that all was replaced by the smile Nikolai had grown used to seeing on his face.

'Oh god…' Nikolai thought, dreading what usually seemed to come with that smile. Endless hours of talking…

"Hey Nikolai! Sorry I didn't see you there, I was trying to text and ride at the same time. I guess that probably wasn't the best of ideas now that I think about it. Are you hurt I have band-aids. There's Hello Kitty and Power Rangers...'

Nikolai found himself glaring at the way too cheerful blonde again. 'This kid literally never shuts up... He didn't even answer my question!'

"Hey! Just stop talking for a minute and answer my question. What the hell are you doing here? Don't you live in Bethalto or something?"

Adrian paused when Nikolai told him to stop, his smile briefly fading as he listened before coming back full force when Nikolai stopped talking.

"Oh yeah, you saw me get off the train there yesterday, right? I just work in Bethalto, I don't live there." Adrian replied motioning towards the house right next door to Nikolai's where the old man used to live.

'With my dad and my cat, Linus. He's an adorable cat, but sometimes my mom gets scared of him because he's a little weird...'

Nikolai didn't hear anything after Adrian said where he lived, he was too filled with horror to respond. Nikolai began to get sickening images of having to walk to the train station, ride the train, and walk from the other train station to school all while having his ears talked off by a idiotic and oblivious blonde.

'If I kill him now...'

"-and that's how I got my cat! Do you need a hand up Nikolai? You're kind of just sitting there."

"No." Nikolai snapped immediately, out of surprise more than actually not wanting his help.

'No one has ever offered that before… What is it with this guy? Doesn't he know I wouldn't care if he rode his bike off the face of the world?'

"I'm fine. Look, I told you before, keep you're stupid little thought about us ever becoming friends to yourself. I don't like you, you look like a fucking vampire and you just almost ran me over trying to text while riding a bike. Just because we're neighbors now is not more incentive to keep trying to be friends. I don't have friends and you aren't going to change that. I'm switching my first hour class so now you have no excuse to be near me at school." Nikolai said, glaring up at Adrian as he spoke and watching his face fall from a bright grin to a small frown.

Nikolai did feel a little bad when that 'kicked -puppy' look came back across his face, but he forced himself not to care. Adrian wasn't a kid, he could take care of himself. Nikolai didn't need to care about him.

Adrian didn't try to stop him, or say anything to him, when he gathered his stuff off the ground and began walking towards the train station.

'Maybe I finally shut him up... I feel kind of bad for doing it so harshly...But he deserved it! Talking like that, like I was his best friend when he should be able to tell that I don't want anything to do with him. But still he was just trying to be nice...but-'

"Arg! I'm gonna late!" Nikolai swore before taking off in a run towards the train station.

Adrian watched as Nikolai's walk turned into a run and soon he was sprinting down the street.

"I would have given you my bike if you'd just asked... I drive to school." Adrian mumbled, getting off his bike and walking it to his garage before getting his car keys out of his pocket.

Adrian wiped at the small amount of tears that had begun forming in his eyes frustratedly.

"Ngh, why am I crying? This is so stupid. I don't even know him. He's probably just… mean or something. I don't want a mean friend…I just want a friend…" Adrian bit his bottom lip to prevent from sobbing. It was stupid that he was this upset. He knew he was just overreacting. He had had it coming, so he should have listened to Nikolai in the first place and not have been so stupidly stubborn and determined to make him his friend. That would have solved this and maybe his new neighbor wouldn't hate his guts.

'I need to get to school..' Adrian thought after a moment of just being upset with himself. He backed out of the driveway and headed to school.

Nikolai stood looking in complete devastation at his locker. He knew Milica was mad but...

The metal on his door seemed to have been hit repeatedly with a blunt object of sorts and the words 'FAG' accompanied by a giant penis were spray-painted on it. His first thought was to report Milica, but then he realized it was futile. Milica was a cousin of Ivan Braginski, the notorious super senior who had been removed from his homeroom, had been to jail twice and was now rumored to be part of the Russian mafia. Milica obviously wouldn't have just strolled into the school and smash his locker with a criminal as her cousin. No, she would have made sure that every camera was covered and no one was around to hear or see her. In short, there was absolutely no evidence that she'd done that to his locker.

Nikolai sighed and figured he'd spend after school today getting his locker repaired. After all, if he just left it people would get the wrong idea and think that he might be condoning the graffiti. When he finally managed to open it, as part of it had been smashed into the locker next to it, Nikolai found that Milica had ripped the majority of his books to pieces, a pile of tattered papers and book bindings now sat on the bottom of his locker.

'Shit! _She_ broke up with _me_!'

"Nikolai Petrov, please report to the main office, Nikolai~"

'That's just fucking perfect.'

Nikolai walked down to the office, ignoring the people staring at him with a mixture of amused, apologetic, curious, and appalled looks.

The main secretary sent him into the guidance councilor's office when he reached the main office. He'd been to the guidance councilor only once before when a teacher had reported Milica for abuse. She'd been concerned when she'd seen Milica screaming at Nikolai in a hallway outside of her classroom.

He didn't not like the man, in fact he was quite talented at his job. Nikolai knew for a fact he'd turned some of the kids in this school's lives around, but he still had his doubts about the man and his practices. Especially since he'd started his newest idea called the swear jar where one has to put money in the jar for every cussword that's spoken in his presence.

Nikolai felt the maybe fifteen cents left over from his breakfast in his pocket apprehensively as he opened the door and walked in.

"Good morning, Mr. Petrov. Please have a seat."

Nikolai walked into the office and sat down in one of the hard plastic chairs, across from the well groomed looking blonde behind the desk. He was wearing the stereotypical guidance councilor/therapist thick glasses as well as a sweater vest and a bright green tie. Nikolai didn't know what, but something about the man was really intimidating.

"Hi." Nikolai mumbled once he'd sat down.

"So lets get straight to it then." the man said with a 'too bright for this situation smile.' "We got a report about some vulgar graffiti spray painted on the side of our west wing yesterday. A camera caught these on video tape." The councilor laid a variety of pictures down on the desk, all of them displaying a single figure spray painting something on the side of the building.

'We had an anonymous person come in and inform us that you'd been threatening the act and also stated that the jacket seen in this photo is your own. The pictures are however, too dark to see the face of the vandal.

'What the hell? Did Milica do this? She's insane!' Nikolai thought, panicking as he looked down at the pictures. The words '_everyone will die' _were written in red spray paint followed by tomorrow's date. Nikolai's heart skipped a beat when he realized how serious this situation was.

"Sir, I had nothing to do with this. I just broke up with my girlfriend last night and she was furious and framed me for this. If you don't believe me, look at my locker. It's completely destroyed." Nikolai said, frantically trying to get the guidance councilor to believe him. "She must have taken my jacket from my locker when she destroyed it."

The guidance councilor waved his hand dismissively and leaned back in his chair "Alright, alright, calm down. We didn't think you did it, that's why they sent you to me. So are you saying your ex did this?"

Nikolai nodded, "She was mad at me for breaking up with her." he reiterated.

The councilor looked down at the pictures one last time.

"I believe you, but I don't know how the police will react.."

"The police?" Nikolai demanded, beginning to panic again.

"Calm down...don't panic-" the councilor began.

"Of course I'm going to panic! I could be arrested for something I didn't even do! What if they don't believe me? I didn't do it! I rode the train home right after school! You can ask Adrian! That new Romanian student-he rode the bus home with me."

The councilor told him to calm down once more before saying, "Alright, I'll call him down and get his story on this. Was there anyone at your home we can get to vouch that you were there?"

Nikolai nodded, and gave the councilor Alesander's work number. After that Nikolai was sent back to class. The entire walk there Nikolai was regretting what he'd said to Adrian this morning, not because he felt bad now, but because now after he'd been completely rude to him he was trying to get the boy to help save his ass. He sincerely hoped that Adrian wasn't going to bend the truth because he was mad about what Nikolai had said this morning.

'If this all goes over well I have to apologize to him.' Nikolai decided as he tried to calm himself down and stop shaking before he went to class.

Nikolai was called back down to the office at the end of fifth hour, just when he had begun to think that the whole incident had blown over and maybe Milica had even been arrested.

How wrong he had been.

When he got to the office he found two cops, Alesander, Milica, Adrian and Ivan Braginski all standing in the principle's office.

The secretary looked at him oddly when he came and motioned him into the room. He could practically feel the stares from the people in the office.

'Oh yeah, that right. Milica's living with Ivan and his siblings for now..' Milica's parents had 'gone out of the country' for a few months apparently. Nikolai was sure if Milica's parents were anything like her they were in jail and not 'out of the country' , but either way, Milica was staying with Ivan as of late, which explained why he was here.

As soon as he got into the room, one of the cops looked up at him.

"Are you Nikolai Petrov?"

Everyone in the room turned to look at him. Adrian and Alesander's eyes were filled with concern. Milica's were filled with complete malice and Ivan's could almost be placed as…amused…?

"Yes…" Nikolai answered slowly, hating how scared he sounded at the moment.

"Have a seat."

Nikolai sat down on the couch in between Adrian and Alesander, his heart pounding in fear.

Alesander moved a hand to his shoulder and gave it a small, reassuring squeeze. It didn't do much to help Nikolai's nerves.

"Now, you kids know we take threats like this to the highest actions and concerns. This is a very serious situation and if either of you two set this up as a joke now is the time to tell us and your punishment will not be so severe." one of the cops stated, looking pointedly at Nikolai and Milica.

"This is absolutely ridiculous!" Alesander said, glaring at the cop that had just spoke as he talked. "Nikolai was at our house last night! He let me in the house because I gave my key to my girlfriend! You have two people saying that he didn't vandalize the school and one ex-criminal saying that Milica didn't do it. Is it really that hard to know who to believe?" Alesander demanded, glaring at Ivan while he spoke.

Alesander and Ivan had a relationship of sorts. It started when Ivan basically beat the shit out of him when he'd found out Alesander was dating his sister and had made her cry by a simple misunderstanding which he had apologized for. Even though Alesander was two years older that Ivan, he hadn't been able to stand up to the tall and angry Russian. He had been in the hospital for almost an entire night.

The principle of the school looked up at Ivan, watching him with a look that showed almost a bit of fear. "We have to be sure, this is a very serious case."

Nikolai knew at that instant that the only thing keeping Mica out of jail was her giant cousin standing over her shoulder and his supposed links to the Russian mafia.

Ivan grinned childishly down at Alesander, it was kind of even smug looking.

Nikolai looked back at Alesander and saw he was fuming, but was trying to keep his rage in check as to not make anything worse for Nikolai. He also felt Adrian stiffen next to him, and for the first time Nikolai noticed how determined and upset Adrian seemed. It was the first time Nikolai had ever seen anything other than pure happiness in the boy's eyes.

"Nikolai's been talking about this for days, and now that you finally have proof he's been threatening to shoot up the school you guys do nothing about it and say its me? Goes to show how safe this school is," Milica sniffed in pure annoyance, her tone sounding absolutely disgusted.

The next thing that happened surprised Nikolai more than the situation had itself.

"You are being absolutely unfair! Nikolai gave a perfectly acceptable alibi and has two people to support it, two people that are not or have never been in prison, I might add. Nikolai rides the train to school in the morning and I was talking to him on the train last night. Trains don't run after nine and he lives in Huntsville! There is no way he could have gotten back here, destroyed his own locker and spray painted the west building. It's just not humanly possible. Milica was pissed because Nikolai was strong and didn't come crawling back to an abusive relationship! So stop being afraid of Ivan, buck up and realize Milica did all of this. All evidence points to her and you have absolutely no lead other than that _she _says that Nikolai did it."

Nikolai jumped when Adrian had started shouting and looked up at him incredulously as he continued. Adrina looked like he was on the verge of just jumping Milica, he looked so pissed. For a brief second Nikolai had to wonder why. Why was Adrian being so nice to him when Nikolai had said that to him this morning?

The room fell silent, and for a moment all the tension that was between Ivan and Alesander seemed to shift and focus itself on the glaring contest currently going on between Milica and Adrian.

Milica's glare could burn down tree's, Adrian's could melt a glacier.

Nikolai shifted nervously in fear as he caught Ivan staring at Adrian with a dangerous glint in his eye.

'Idiot! Does he know what he just did? Ivan is going to gut him like a fish!'

Finally, the principal cleared her throat, looking with a new defiance at Ivan.

"Adrian is right. Nikolai has no record with the school while Milica has had several cases of bullying and vandalism under her belt. While I assure you this decision has nothing to do with your cousin, Miss Braginski, I am letting Nikolai and his family go. Mr. Braginski if you wish to stay while we figure an appropriate consequence for your cousin, stay, but I will inform you now that if any harm is to come to those three young men over there, you will be the first suspect."

Nikolai was impressed with the backbone that Adrian's words seemed to have given the principal.

Ivan's head snapped sharply towards the principal when he finished speaking, he looked like he was about to start yelling, his childish grin was replaced with the scariest glare Nikolai had seen in his life. Almost identical to Milica's usual glare. But then he smiled and placed a hand on Milica's shoulder.

"I'll be at home, da. Call me if you want something."

Nikolai had never felt as much fear in his life than when Ivan Braginski walked by him and out of the office door, glancing down at him with something that could only be named as pure anger..

A quick glance at Adrian proved that he felt the same thing.

Nikolai slowly realized he hadn't heard the last from Ivan, or Milica Braginski.

**Dun dun dunnnn, you have no idea how much I wanted to write the next chapter onto this one. It's going to be soo much fun to write! *evil smile***

**Either way, if the grammar or something is atrocious, blame Catherine for not catching it. (Jk, blame my crappy grammar abilities.)**

**Oh, I don't think I've given her credit for doing this yet. Catherine is my beta-reader/best friend/lover.**

**Until the next chapter,**

**~Author**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey guys! Sorry I went like an entire week without updating things, I really have no excuse other than I am an easily side tracked and very busy sophomore. I'll try to be more up -to-date on things from now on.**

**Anyway, this chapter…phew…this chapter…**

**I originally started writing a different plot line for this one, and then I was all like 'Nikolai Adrian luv com tew sooon!'**

**Then I wrote it this way.**

**So if it seems a little messy and stuff, that's definitely because, once again, this was all typed on my phone.**

**Anyway, I'll just let you guys make your own assumptions this chapter, I'll explain more plot the next one.**

**~Alicia**

Nikolai rode home with Alesander after the principal released them. He couldn't shake the feeling of guilt he had over what had happened. He'd been downright mean to Adrian for as long as he'd known him, and yet the kid still stuck up for him the way he had.

Adrian had declined an offer for a ride home from Alesander, saying he had work and he couldn't leave his car at school.

'I should have insisted he ride with us anyway, at least then there'd be Alesander to protect us.'

The last part of that thought Nikolai wasn't so sure about. He realized he'd only thought it to reassure himself. Nikolai frowned a bit. Alesander had already had the shit beaten out of him by Ivan, he probably couldn't put up much of a fight against him a second time.

'I wonder how things with Kat are going to go with this... The end can't be good...'

Just then, Alesander laughed. It was small and had a slightly strained tone to it, which made Nikolai quirk an eyebrow in curiosity.

"What are you laughing at, idiot?"

Alesander chuckled a bit, taking no notice, or not showing he noticed, the small glare he was receiving from his younger brother.

"You're worrying way too much. Braginski isn't stupid. He's not gonna pop out of no where and kill us with the cops keeping a close eye on him, and by the time they let up he'll have cooled down a bit, right? We'll be fine."

Nikolai rolled his eyes, "That's not going to help me at all! How the hell is it supposed to help me to know I'm being watched by a family of crazy Russians even if they aren't going to attack? I'll never be able to bathe comfortably again! The mafia is after me!"

Nikolai felt a little bad for yelling, and it took him a moment to calm down and realize that Alesander had only been trying to reassure him and was honestly just trying to be nice, but still…

"Sorry…" Nikolai mumbled after a few moments of silence passed between them.

Alesander laughed a bit again, it still sounded forced and a bit wry, "Its fine Nikolai, you're freaked out. Once you get some sleep or something I think you'll be fine."

Nikolai nodded and even smiled a bit, Adrian's words being more comforting to him than they would seem.

'He knew... exactly was I was talking about...call it crazy, but I think the thing that happened today has actually brought me and Alesander closer than we have been over the past few months...which is strange…why is that?'

Nikolai sat contemplating as Alesander drove them home, conversation between the two of them not starting back up again. Alesander was a great brother, Nikolai decided, and anyone would be lucky to have him. Sure, he was lazy and simple minded and had a new girlfriend every fourth week of the month, although, Katyusha has been around for quite a while now; but he was still a great brother.

Nikolai had really been losing touch with his brother over the past few months, it was nice to have their connection coming back, even if it wasn't completely there yet.

'It felt nice to have him here, even if he didn't do much.' Nikolai thought to himself, thinking about how Alesander had known exactly how panicked he was when he walked into the principal's office and tried to calm him down. Maybe Nikolai didn't have any friends, but he had Alesander who would stand by him whenever he needed help.

That afternoon, after Nikolai got home, he immediately went to tend to his garden. He liked to think that he just kept his garden nice so his yard didn't look trashy, but that wasn't the case at all. Nikolai loved his garden, and everything in it. Except for that damn cactus Alesander had potted and given to him for his birthday, he had yet been able to 'accidentally' kill the thing. Nikolai's garden was mentally soothing to him, a stress relief of sorts. It also gave him a sense of importance knowing that some of his plants would die if he wasn't there.

'I'm such an old lady.' Nikolai thought as he dully acknowledged the fact that he was using plants to substitute some for his lack of friends.

'But whatever...no one's ever died from loneliness... Well hello there Mr. Tulip, your looking beautiful today.'

Nikolai smiled and admired his small patch of blooming tulips, finding a particularly pretty looking tulip amongst them. They looked nothing like the gorgeous, black, white and blue ones in his Dutch neighbor's garden, but Nikolai supposed that's what he liked about his own. They weren't extravagant, or glorious, but they were happy and content and grew regardless of their competition next door.

Nikolai heard his door open behind him and figured Alesander was coming out to talk to him.

"Hey Nikolai, I didn't know you liked to garden!' a bright and cheery voice asked him.

'What the he- oh yeah, he lives there now.' Nikolai noted, panicking first at the sound of Adrian's voice before remembering that he'd moved into the house right next door to his.

Nikolai turned to see Adrian was standing on the patio in his own backyard. His back door was close enough to Nikolai's that it was reasonable for Nikolai to confuse which one had been opening.

Nikolai didn't want to talk to Adrian right now, his cheerful and overbearing attitude was interrupting happy garden time. But he couldn't very well just send him away, especially after what he'd done for him today.

"Hey Adrian." Nikolai sighed, deciding not to send him away and attempt trying to be nicer to Adrian.

Adrian shifted for a few seconds, he hadn't really been expecting that from Nikolai. He'd grown used to expecting him to snap at or ignore him.

"Some day you've had huh? You think Milica's gonna come back to school?" Adrian said conversationally after a few moments, walking closer to where Nikolai was working on the other side of the fence.

Nikolai didn't say anything. He couldn't send him away, but he didn't have to talk to him over such stupid things.

"Wow, you look like you're enjoying that." Adrian said, actually stopping at a comfortable talking distance from Nikolai.

"I am." Nikolai answered back without really thinking.

'Might as well throw him a bone. He's the reason I'm here right now and not in prison or something.'

Nikolai was reluctant to admit he answered Adrian because he wanted to talk to him.

"Maybe you could work in my yard sometime." Adrian said, letting the sentence hang so if Nikolai decided not to answer it could be taken as amusing.

Nikolai's heart sped up as he looked up and surveyed Adrian's yard. The grass was beautiful, meaning the soil it grew on was as fertile as the stuff in his own. He constantly had spatial battles with his garden, as it dominated most of his backyard besides Alesander's stupid barbeque pit which he absolutely refused to give up. He kept having to come up with creative ways to add more space to it.

His fingers just itched to begin buying and planting in the grass of the other side of that fence.

"Your mother wouldn't mind?" Nikolai asked quietly, forgetting his stubborn refusal to easily have a conversation with Adrian.

Adrian's entire face lit up as Nikolai asked this, that obscene and stupidly cheerful smile coming back across his face.

"No! No, she won't mind! Do you need money for the flowers and stuff? I have a little extra from work. Do you want me to pay you?" Adrian asked excitedly.

"Hey hey, I haven't said I'd do it yet!" Nikolai laughed, before realizing he was laughing and falling silent in surprise.

"But you will.' Adrian replied cheerfully, not noticing Nikolai's surprise in himself and the silence because of that. He'd only noticed Nikolai had been laughing, and that made his smile all the brighter.

"How the hell do you know?" Nikolai demanded, forcing his voice back into its usual tone, and even being able to add a slight bit of annoyance at Adrian's assumption.

"Because of the way your face looked when I said it," Adrian replied simply, shrugging off Nikolai's sudden change in tone of voice, "plus you laughed. You never laugh."

Nikolai glared up at Adrian, but inside he felt something totally different, shock.

'He's only known me for one day! How can he say that and be so right?'

Nikolai got to his feet and dusted the dirt off his pants.

"Fine. I'll do it but only because if I don't you will and you'll probably try and kill a shit ton of plants. Is this weekend okay?"

Adrian nodded eagerly, "Do you want me to-."

"I don't want your money." Nikolai replied shortly as he walked back into his house.

It took a lot to keep his small smile of excitement from coming across his face until the door closed behind him. He just didn't want Adrian getting any ideas that they were friends or some shit, he'd already slipped up by laughing with him. Nikolai just liked gardening.

Nikolai went into the living room only to find Katyusha there again, sitting on the couch cuddled up next to Alesander. They were talking about something that obviously upset her as she had large tears streaming down her face, but the subject was not really narrowed by that. Katyusha cried about everything. What they were talking about could rang from the apocalypse to Alesander not liking the lunch they'd eaten together.

Normally Nikolai would have ignored the couple on his couch and gone upstairs, but he was in a fairly good mood right now, and was kind of concerned.

"Hey, what happened?" he asked, hoping he didn't seem prying or sound as awkward as he felt.

"Oh hey, Nikolai. Ivan gave Kat a hard time apparently...she doesn't want to leave us alone now..." Alesander explained, turning back towards Katyusha as she sobbed a bit.

'Seems like a stupid reason to be crying this hard...but this is Katyusha...' Nikolai noted before nodding. "We'll be fine Kat, really. We have like, nine locks on all of our doors that we can start using." Nikolai tried, wishing he had more experience at trying to comfort people, especially with how miserable Katyusha looked. Sure, he thought she was a big, oblivious crybaby, but he still didn't like her being this upset over something she hardly had anything to do with.

'Ivan must have been pissed. Usually he hates making Katyusha cry.' Nikolai thought.

A small tinge of fear shot through him as he realized exactly how dangerous it was to have Ivan so angry.

"I know it's stupid, but I just don't like leaving you two alone…" Katyusha began in a quiet voice, not acknowledging in the least what Nikolai had just said. "I feel like he's going to be less able to do something if I'm here with you guys…"

An hour later Nikolai found himself upstairs, packing up the things in his room to switch bedrooms. Katyusha and Alesander were at the Braginski's house, trying to get Katyusha's stuff. It was dangerous, Ivan was probably there and probably wouldn't be too happy to see his sister leaving. Nikolai had tried to go with them, but Alesander had blantly refused, using the excuse he needed Nikolai to move out of the bigger bedroom while they were gone. Nikolai knew, however, he'd only refused because he didn't know how the trip was going to end up and he probably wouldn't have been able to forgive himself if Nikolai had gotten hurt.

The decision to give Katyusha Nikolai's bedroom had been mutual. Alesander was reluctant to force her to sleep in his room, especially since their relationship was actually doing well and he had no desire to risk it, and Nikolai had agreed. He liked Katyusha enough that he didn't want to put up with a different woman coming in and taking her spot. Plus, he'd always wanted the bedroom at the end of the hall anyway, he'd just been too lazy to move. It was smaller and creaked more, but it looked out over his garden, which was a big plus. The rooms had been added to all of the houses after they were built in effort to provide the tenants with more room. They were the only part of the houses not connected, each room was built so it faced the backyard.

Nikolai had no problem moving into the room. He didn't even have all that much stuff to move. And with two windows, that made for a number of options for putting plants in his room.

'Maybe I'll make a window sill garden. With petunias, I can probably still grow those…' Nikolai thought as he carried a box filled with random things that belong to him down the hall to his new room.

'Wonder how big it is, maybe Alesander will let me borrow his car today so I can go to town and get some.' Nikolai thought, setting his box down on the floor of the room before going to one of the windows.

Old-fashioned heavy brown, velvet curtains hung in front of both windows, blocking even the tiniest bit of sunlight from getting into the room. Nikolai pulled them open, deciding that he would get new curtains too once he got a face full of dust.

'How nice, it even has a window sill so I don't have to build one.' Nikolai noted with a small smile.

"Nikolai?"

Nikolai's heart dropped through the floor as he looked up.

Across the small gap between their two houses, Adrian was leaning slightly out of an open window, grinning and waving at Nikolai.

'Fuck..'

**Dun dun duun!**

**Sorry about the long update, but it's probably going to be even longer with my busy week coming up, sorry. But good news is: Spring Break is next week! So that means more writing time! Woot!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry, sorry, sorry. God this is really late. I just got really distracted over my spring break, shit went down with someone I really cared about and writing this got pushed to the end of my work list. But I think things should calm down, so six will be out by next Sunday (if nothing goes awfully ,awfully wrong).**

**Oh, and thanks for the "Get back on the laptop" message, that was rather amusing.**

**Um, I feel like the plot line is pretty solid from here on out, so there wont be a lot of days where I'm just writing to write a plot, so that's going to reduce update time as well. But don't let that bother you, if you still have an idea, tell me!**

**Oh, and sorry if the plants and stuff are totally off, I'm doing this based off of how plants grow here in the Midwest. As well as I should be put in jail for crimes against potted plants.**

**Anyway, here's this. Enjoy**

It took all of Nikolai's self control to not demand he be able to move back into his old room. Having Adrian living less than ten feet away from him was slightly less of an emergency than Katyusha's situation, he decided after slamming shut the window without even bothering to wave to Adrian. So he continued to move his things. He didn't have to open the window facing Adrian, the other one faced in the opposite direction, and it still had the window-sill he could grow his flowers on.

It wasn't as bad as it originally seemed.

Although, Nikolai was still kind of wary on how well he was going to be able to sleep knowing an insane Romanian and his family was less than a jumping distance away from him.

'Maybe that's not his room, maybe that's just storage or something...but why would he be in his storage room this late in the day...maybe he's moving stuff around, after all he did just move in. "Shit, why am I so bothered by this?" Nikolai finished his thoughts out loud to fill the unsettling silence that filled his house. A few hours later Nikolai was unpacking the contents of his last box and putting them in their respective places throughout the new room. He enjoyed being precise with things like this, but he knew even now that everything in his room would probably be moved multiple times until he found the perfect arrangement for them.

'I have to remember to at least be civil with him. I can't completely ignore him- at least not until I finish his garden...I wonder if he'll let me do his front lawn too...' Nikolai thought, slightly distracted by the exciting idea of even more ground he could use in his newest project. He sat down on his bed as he thought about everything he could do with the big backyard Adrian had let him use. He didn't really know how long he'd been sitting there, but eventually he heard his front door open and Alesander's voice downstairs.

"Nikolai?"

Nikolai let out a sigh of relief, as he heard Alesander's voice, that he had nearly forgotten he was holding. He hadn't ever relaxed during the two hours Alesander and Katyusha had disappeared, it was more like the entire thing had been pushed to the back of his mind by the Adrian and his garden scenario. But still, Nikolai was glad they'd made it back okay.

"Yes?" Nikolai called back, not bothering to keep his signature 'slightly annoyed' tone in his voice. He'd been in a relatively good mood most of the afternoon after finding out about his new garden space. Sure he'd had to move bedrooms and his bedroom was now across from Adrian's- he'd given up on hoping that that was just a random room and had decided to be pessimistic about the whole situation.

Alesander stood in the middle of the living room with Katyusha sitting on the couch behind him. He was looking up at Nikolai when he came to the top of the stairwell with a content smile.

'He's too happy about this entire situation.' Nikolai thought to himself. He knew what that smile meant without even having to talk to him about it. Alesander was happy that Katyusha was now living with him and she cared enough about him to do so but, damn, calm down a bit.

"Hey, do you mind if Katyusha and I go out tonight, sorry it's on such short notice but you know Gilbert, Francis and Antonio. Those guys have the worst timing."

Nikolai opened his mouth to reply with that he didn't really care, but then a jolt of fear came as he realized with Alesander gone he'd be left here alone with a crazy Russian probably still out for his blood.

'God, I'm such a girl. Am I really going to make them stay home because I'm scared like a six year old?" Nikolai thought bitterly, ignoring the part of him that wanted to flatly reply 'yes.'

No, Nikolai decided he wasn't going to let himself fall that far, he'd already had to have been defended by an arguably insane Romanian against a definitely insane Serbian and her bat-shit insane cousin.

Thinking about Adrian led to a different thought. Maybe he didn't have to stay here alone, After all it was only about six.

"Yeah that's fine with me, but can you drop me off in town, I kind of wanted to buy some stuff." Nikolai said finally, deciding against hanging out with Adrian at the last minute. 'He's probably busy anyway, he did just move in.' Nikolai thought in an excuse for himself.

Alesander frowned a bit at the statement, and Nikolai knew just by the sight of it that Alesander was against the idea of Nikolai going through town alone. Which was understandable, when Nikolai thought about it. Nikolai could lock the doors at home, if he was in town he wouldn't have any defense from Ivan. But it still made Nikolai nervous to be at home alone at night, even if the doors were locked. What if Ivan was already in here? In the closet? He came in when they opened the garge and they didn't notice. He was here just waiting for Alesander to leave so he could attack...

"What if I get someone to come with me?" Nikolai blurted out quickly. He wanted to smack himself as soon as he said it. 'God dammit, calm down and stop acting like a terrified six year old,' but Nikolai wasn't about to take back the wing of opportunity he'd created with his statement. Maybe he could get Adrian to come with him.

Alesander looked as confused with the comment as Nikolai felt frustrated with himself for saying it. Obviously Alesander was having a hard time not pointing out the fact Nikolai had no friends. Instead, he opted for a lighter way of putting things. A simple asking of whom.

Nikolai quickly went over his very short friends list in his head, trying to think of anyone but his new neighbor.

Miles- No. He was probably living with Milica and Ivan and that'd put him in an awkward place. Especially since they weren't friends anymore, and weren't that good of friends to begin with.

Milica- No way in hell.

That left Adrian. As much as Nikolai would hate to admit it, the fact that Adrian didn't hate him or avoid him made him one of Nikolai's top friends.

'Oh dead lord, what am I getting my life into?' Nikolai thought as he explained to Alesander that he would ask Adrian to go with him.

Alesander looked at him oddly for a second, now obviously resenting another urge to say 'I thought you hated that kid.' Instead of saying anything along those lines, Alesander just shrugged.

"Kay, I guess that's fine." Alesander's voice held a small amount of apprehension, like he was giving Nikolai room to take back what he'd said, or at least clarify a bit. "Do you want a ride to town, we're not going to be back until later so you'll have to take the train back." Alesander said, looking down at his watch for the time as he spoke.

Nikolai inwardly cringed as he realized for the first time he'd have to be riding in Alesander's new rental car if he drove him to town. Alesander hadn't spent a lot of money on renting the car when his own broke down and had to be taken into the shop. If Nikolai rode in it, he'd have to sit in the back since Kat was here. It wasn't that bad in the front but it was a used car, and Nikolai was pretty sure the previous owner was in jail for drugs or prostitution. The car was a newer model, and the brakes worked, which was a plus, but Nikolai was constantly pulling random awkward things like condoms and sex toys out of the strangest places in the back of the car. Like behind the headrests and next to the seatbelt buckles, plus it always smelt like cigarette smoke, no matter how much Febreeze they used in it. It wasn't the most luxurious of rides, and Nikolai preferred to take the train than ride in it, and pray that Alesander would get his car back eventually.

"No, it's fine, I'll take the train. Besides, I don't know when I'll be leaving here anyway. You guys can just go." Nikolai replied.

Alesander nodded, "Okay, sounds good. See you later, if you're not asleep when we get back." Alesander said as Katyusha got to her feet and he handed her her coat.

"Okay." Nikolai replied.

"Oh, by the way, Kat's stuff is in the garage, we were going to repaint the room before we moved it all in so we had to move some of your gardening stuff, but we were careful and you'll have your space back once the garage is empty again. Okay?" Alesander asked apprehensively, knowing how protective Nikolai was over his stuff and not knowing how well he was going to react to them moving his things.

'Since when are you ever careful?' Nikolai thought grumpily, trying to keep his displeasure off of his face as he thought begrudgingly of the last time Alesander was "careful" with his stuff. "Sounds fine," Nikolai sighed, now knowing he was going to have to set aside time for him to re-arrange all of his gardening supplies in the smaller space they'd been moved to.

Alesander nodded at his answer and walked to the front door. He held it open for Katyusha. Katyusha waved back to Nikolai before ducking under Alesander's arm that was holding the door and going out to the car. Alesander followed.

Nikolai waited for the distinct locking of his door before sighing and looking around the now almost empty house.

Was he really so lonely of a person that he'd resorted to having Adrian, and obnoxious kid that he'd just met, be his best friend.

'Ngh' Nikolai thought, grabbing at the left side of his forehead as he trudged down the stairs and out the front door to get his..."friend."

Nikolai knocked on Adrian's door a bit tentatively, as if he was afraid of the amount of happiness that would greet him on the other side.

To his relief, it wasn't Adrian who answered the door.

Instead, it was a grown man with short, yet neatly kept blonde hair. The first thing Nikolai noticed about the man were his eyes, which were almost a shade of brown away from being pitch black.

They both stood in a tense silence for a moment before Nikolai realized he was expected to say something.

"Oh- uh, hi. I was wondering if Adrian was here, I need a ride into town and-"

Nikolai didn't get to finish because as soon as he said Adrian's name the man leaned back, practically closed the door and shouted in what Nikolai was going to assume was Romanian.

Nikolai jumped when the man shouted and then stood there, a bit awkwardly, wondering to himself why he was even here, while waiting for his new, obnoxious, Romanian neighbor to come to the door.

He heard Adrian before he saw him. And what was weird is that he didn't sound nearly as happy as he usually did. He was complaining in rapid Romanian about something to the man holding the door, who Nikolai was now going to assume was his father.

"Dumnezeu, nu trebuie să strigi în casă. Eu nu sunt vechi ca tine, auzul meu este perfect în regulă."

"Dumnezeu, esti un astfel de brat atunci când te trezeşti după un pui de somn. Unele băiat este aici să vă vadă" Adrian's father answered back in an annoyed sounding tone before gesturing towards the door.

Nikolai stood feeling more and more awkward as Adrian said something else he didn't catch before switching places with his father so he was holding the door.

Adrian snapped before turning to look at Nikolai.

"Oh, hi Nikolai! What's up with you? Sorry about him, he's just rude. Would you like to come inside real fast? Why are you here?" Adrian asked. It was obvious he was a little confused- happy-but still a little confused about the whole situation. He was grinning from ear to ear like usual but his eyes held a slightly puzzled look.

"Oh, um, I needed to go into town, and after what happened with Ivan-"

Nikolai cut off as Adrian's father's voice began speaking in Romanian again from the other side of the partially closed door, "Ce sa întâmplat cu Ivan? Ai intr-o lupta?"

"Nu, taci si du-te de televiziune ceas," Adrian quickly snapped back at him in the same language before turning back towards Nikolai again.

"Sorry. Okay, sounds fun. Did you want to leave now?" Adrian asked, looking back at something which Nikolai assumed must have been a clock.

"Well, the train doesn't come until seven fifteen.."

Adrian frowned in confusion for a second, before laughing a bit. "Oh, I was going to drive you, if that's okay with your pa- er, brother." Adrian said, blushing slightly at his slip up.

"Alesander's fine with it" Nikolai sighed, having an extremely hard time keeping his annoyance out of his voice. 'That's probably a lie,' Nikolai thought as he further considered his last statement . Alesander was lazy and sometimes stupid, but he had his overprotective moments. He had absolutely refused to ever let Milica drive Nikolai around when they were still dating. And he had only just started letting Katyusha drive him to school when she stayed the night and left around the same time he did.

'What Alesander doesn't know won't hurt him.' Nikolai decided in the end, shrugging off his worried thoughts.

"Okay, hang on. Let me get my keys and jacket." Adrian said brightly before disappearing behind his door leaving Nikolai standing on the small porch, alone.

'I hope those plants are supposed to be drying or something.' Nikolai thought as he looked down and observed the sad, pitiful, potted plants on the porch. There were a few tulips beginning to poke up out of a different pot, but Nikolai had very little faith in their already browning stems. The marigolds were dead as rocks and it took a longer time for Nikolai to recognize the shriveled and dead petunias in a different pot.

'Jesus Christ, this is plant homicide.' Nikolai thought, looking down at the plants.

A loud meow interrupted him from wondering how a plant could be _that _dead. Nikolai turned to see the shit-scariest cat he'd ever seen in his life.

It's fur matted and clumpy grayish black fur, which looked filthy from where Nikolai was standing. And it was standing there staring at Nikolai with blood red eyes, seeming to have appeared out of fucking no where. But that wasn't even the scariest part. The scariest parts were the huge, fang-like teeth that hung almost a centimeter underneath its pudgy lips. Those teeth just gave Nikolai the feeling the cat had killed multiple things in it's life, including humans.

The cat gave another deep heavy meow, sounding strained and near death and shooting a wave of terror through Nikolai.

'Oh god, that thing is fucking terrifying.' Nikolai began contemplating if he could punt the thing off the porch without it attacking him when he noticed that it had a collar around it's fat neck. 'Holy shit, someone actually owns this beast? Who the hell could sleep knowing this thing was in their house?'

Then Nikolai realized that he knew exactly who could sleep with a demon cat.

Nikolai turned when Adrian came back through the door, calling back to his father in Romanian before he looked back at the cat with wide, happy eyes.

"Oh my god! DAD! Linus came back!"

"Mare, acum avem cina." Adrian's father called faintly from the house

Nikolai looked completely befuddled as Adrian rushed past him, ignoring his father for whatever reason, and actually picked up the demon cat, who meowed in cat annoyance in response.

"Linus! Bad kitty! Where did you run off too?" Adrian asked as if the cat was actually going to respond.

'Of course he owns the demon cat. Of course.' Nikolai thinks exasperatedly as Adrian continues to gush over his cat. Nikolai had never had pets, but he knew for sure he would never love anything that scary looking, no matter what.

After a good minute of Adrian alternating between berating his cat and cuddling it, he finally turned towards Nikolai and addressed him.

"Oh, sorry I didn't properly introduce you two." Adrian began, sounding almost embarrassed about the whole thing.

"It's a cat, I'm not too hurt by it." Nikolai replied flatly, not even realizing he was saying that out loud until he was halfway through his statement. He began to stammer out an apology for the snappish comment, but Adrian just laughed, not even seeming to consider it.

"Anyway, this is Linus. I've had him since he was a kitten. He ran away yesterday and I was like, super worried he died or something. But I guess he was just off doing kitty things. Huh Linus? Were you just doing kitty things?" Adrian said as returned to cooing at his cat for a little bit, causing Nikolai to roll his eyes and wonder if he could just walk away without Adrian noticing.

He decided against it as he was still slightly put off by the thought of Ivan out for his blood.

'Although Adrian might not be the best company in this situation…Ivan is probably pissed at him too' Nikolai decided, in the end, Adrian's company was still better than his other option of none.

"Okay, go play you bad kitty." Adrian said, setting Linus back inside his house.

Once it was on it's feet again the fat cat turned and hissed at Adrian before plodding further into the house.

"Ah! He's just so cute." Adrian said, grinning as he looked after his cat for a few moments before closing the door.

Nikolai sighed in annoyance. Not that he didn't like spending time listening to his neighbor gushing over a cat….

"Are you ready to go?" Nikolai asked shortly, his voice not coming out nearly as harsh as he had meant it too for some reason.

"Yeah! Lets go before it gets dark. I hate driving at night." Adrian said, going down the front stairs and to his already open garage.

'God, why is his garage open? Ivan could be waiting to stab him and he wouldn't even suspect it. This kid is going to get himself slaughtered.' Nikolai decided grimly as he followed after Adrian.

Adrian's car was nicer than Nikolai would have expected from him. Nikolai had thought it would be littered with candy wrappers carelessly thrown to the floor and empty soda cans.

Instead it was relatively clean, a few forgotten straw and gum wrappers here and there and there was a seemingly old soda in the cup holder, but that was about the worst. It didn't even smell thanks to the pine scented air freshener. Which, oddly enough, just fit right in with the car's atmosphere.

"Sorry it's such a mess, I would have cleaned it up a bit if I knew you were going to be riding in here." Adrian said, sitting down in the drivers seat and looking around at the car with a small frown.

"It's fine." Nikolai replied shortly. This time however, his shortness was not because he was annoyed. Adrian sitting down in that driver's seat had sent a realization through his mind like a jolt of lightening. Was he really going to put his life at risk for a few flowers? Adrian didn't seem like the most attentive of people and the last time Nikolai checked it took quite a bit of attention to drive.

'God, I must be fucking insane.' Nikolai thought, trying to make himself not freak out and change his mind about the entire thing. It would be way too weird to explain to Adrian that he didn't want to go anymore because he was afraid of riding in a car with him. So instead, Nikolai just shut up and went with it.

Adrian was, surprisingly, a fairly good driver. He always stayed exactly on the speed limit, even on the country roads where cops rarely ever lingered. Nikolai found himself even wishing the other boy would go a bit faster as the speed they were going at seemed painstakingly slow compared to what Alesander usually drove. Even though Alesander was extremely protective of him, he still drove like a fiend.

"What are we going to get?" Adrian asked randomly, breaking an awkward silence that had hung between them for a good few minutes.

Nikolai felt a little odd replying with 'flowers' as that seemed entirely too feminine. But it was the truth and Nikolai saw no need to lie to Adrian about the matter. Especially because he'd find out when they got them.

A second realization hit Nikolai as he realized he'd be shopping with Adrian.

'This ought to go over well.' Nikolai thought sarcastically as he already began to imagine the unspeakable horrors of shopping with the insane, way too hyper Romanian.

Nikolai fell into a stage of plotting his plan of action upon reaching the store. The plan was based off of his sole desire to get in and out with everything he needed to begin his garden in Adrian's yard as quickly as possible.

'It's probably not too early to plant tulips, those will look nice next to the fence by my garden. Maybe some petunias and daffodils too…'

Adrian said something, but Nikolai was a bit too far off to actually hear the words he said.

"What?"

Adrian laughed lightly, keeping his eyes fixed on the road.

"I asked about what you meant yesterday when you said I should know not to be your friend." Adrian repeated, his voice a bit louder than before.

"Idiot, I'm not deaf. I just didn't hear you the first time." Nikolai said sharply before realizing he was only saying that because of his embarrassment on the question. He coughed a bit and cleared his throat, trying to gather his thoughts and apology. But seriously, what the hell kind of question was that? 'I meant what I meant. You can't tell me that he possibly doesn't get it yet.'

"People don't like me, I'd thought you'd figure that out by now." Nikolai mumbled. He didn't know why he was so put off by the question. He hadn't exactly been the nicest of people to Adrian. He'd thought it'd be pretty obvious for him to tell why he wouldn't want to be friends with Nikolai

Adrian didn't answer for a few tense moments, which was weird as the Romanian always seemed to have a reply ready when they had normal conversations. It was like he was thinking over this a lot more than he usually does. Finally he spoke, and his words sounded like they were carefully placed and well thought over. Which was weird for him. Nikolai realized just how many different sides of Adrian he had seen in the past day. Protective, annoyed, happy, relieved, and now wary.

'There's more to him than I originally thought…' Nikolai thought admittedly.

"I dunno, I guess if I had paid a bit more attention I would have noticed. But I-I don't know. I like to think things about people because I know that about them not because of what other people say. And besides Nikolai, there's a lot more to you than just grumpiness and it's not that hard to see. I'm kind of curious to know exactly what your actual personality is."

Nikolai simply shrugged at the awkward and obscure comment. He didn't know what to say to something like that and he was pretty surprised that the seemingly stupid Romanian could actually be that deep about something. And all Nikolai could think right then was- did he have what Adrian was trying to find?

**Sorry for the abrupt ending, but I figured this was a decent place to stop this chapter.**

**I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE GOOGL TRANSLATOR! I know it's inaccurate but unless someone comes forth and offers to help me write in fluent Romanian-that's whats going to have to do. I know nothings conjugated right, I know verbs and states of beings are not right- trust me. I'm an American kid trying to learn German. I know how bad translators are. I'm sorry.**

**So anyway, there is going to be a bit more different languages floating through this story so I need to know if you would like me to actually put the translation in the story- at the bottom of the story of just let you translate it on your own, which is what I'm doing now.**

**So yeah…Thanks for reading!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hey! I'm alive! Surprise!**

**So, this took a long ass time…., sorry. I just got really busy with stuff and then realized that the beginning of this chapter had been sitting on my phone for days.**

**Lol, so in other news, did anyone go to ASTL this year? I know it's late for, but that was so much fun! Natsu-con is next so if you're going hit me up!**

**This chapter….meh, I feel like I struggled with it a lot, it's not as funny as I usually write, but it's key to the plot….**

**The next chapter is already in the works, hopefully I'll have it out on time :3.**

**Oh, and in the summer I'm going to camp for a few weeks, so there's probably going to be a period of weeks in June where I seem to fall off the face of the planet; don't get worried, I'm still alive, just not near any technology.**

**So, without further ado, I present to you the next chapter.**

**Enjoy ;)**

Nikolai fell silent after Adrian's comment, not even bothering to grace the offhand and outlandish words with a reply. After a short while the conversation between them seemed to have been forgotten. Adrian said nothing and Nikolai began to relax and listen to the music coming from the radio.

"Take a left up here.' were actually the only words Nikolai said to Adrian ten minutes after the conversation and Adrian only nodded in response.

'Great. There goes my only chance at friendship for the rest of my high school life. Just because I don't have something he's looking for.' Nikolai thought bitterly as Adrian turned and pulled into the parking lot of a hardware store.

Nikolai got out of the car and half expected Adrian to not come in with him. It was almost foreign to him to be around Adrian and to not hear him blabber on and on about absolutely nothing. Nikolai had only known him for two days but that was enough to know that this wasn't Adrian's normal behavior.

Luckily, only for the reason that he wouldn't have to carry everything out to the car, Adrian got out of the car too and they both began walking to the store. Adrian hung slightly behind Nikolai because, or what Nikolai assumed, he didn't know what they were here for. Nikolai didn't bother to tell him, he didn't feel like talking right now.

Nikolai got a cart and pushed it silently to the flower section..

The flowers had a decent selection because it was March and this was about the time people began remembering to go plant their flowers so they'd come up on time. Of course most of Nikolai's flowers were already in the ground and had been for a years now. Nikolai pushed the basket past the roses, having no desire to work with those bitchy flowers, what with their thorns and stuff. He stopped his cart next to some decently priced flowers on a shelf with a tag under it saying 'symbolic flowers' . Each of the boxes contained a tiny sprout with a smaller green tag sticking off the side of the pot reading what the flower stood for.

Nikolai honestly didn't care what they represented, but he did make sure that he wasn't picking out any obscene flowers when he began putting them in the cart. He carefully avoided the violets, even though they were beautiful, and instead opted for the daisies wearing a green tag that said 'innocence'. Adrian was his newest, and ironically now oldest, friend after all. If he planted obscene flowers in his yard he had no idea where that would leave them.

After Nikolai placed about six boxes of the sprouts into the cart he began to feel uncomfortable with Adrian only watching as he picked out the flowers for HIS garden.

"You want to pick one out…?" Nikolai said, unconsciously ducking his head a bit as he spoke. It was kind of uncomfortable breaking the awkward silence that had settled between the two of them after their previous conversation.

If it was awkward for Adrian, he either didn't show it or blatantly ignored it as he grinned brightly and immediately grabbed a random red tulip that was missing a tag off the shelf and placed it in the basket.

Nikolai resisted the urge to glare at the flowers thst had just been placed in the cart. They stood out like a sore thumb amongst the rest of his selection. The color of the petals contrasted with every other flower in the basket. It wasn't ugly, it was just different. It was obnoxiously different and Nikolai didn't like it. He had to fight himself to not demand that Adrian pick out a different one.

"Okay, I think that should be enough to start. Now we just need some dirt and peat moss..." Nikolai said, breaking his intense stare directed at the out of place flower and looked for a sign that would say dirt or something.

Adrian nodded. "Can we get garden statues? I can pay for them myself and everything! I want fro-"

"No frogs! We're not doing that!" Nikolai snapped before realizing how harshly he'd spoken and began to stammer out an apology.

"Sorry...we're not getting frogs though. They wouldn't look good in your garden..." he said slowly, watching Adrian's face carefully for any sign of anger, fear or sadness but Adrian's bright smile never left his lips or eyes.

'What the hell, I totally just snapped at him! Why-urgh! I should just get used to it by now.'

And it was true. The two days he'd know Adrian should have been enough to let him know Adrian was daft and wouldn't get offended or upset very easily.

With that thought came another, slightly more unsettling thought. If Adrian was this hard to upset, what was that all about in the guidance office?

Nikolai fell into deep thought on that question, trying to work an answer out of it.

What had Milica done to Adrian to make him respond so...fiercely? Was he normally like that when he protected people he'd just met? Or was it just him against Milica? And why was he doing it in the first place? Especially when Nikolai had been so mean to him for the past two days.

"Arthur!" A loud, really loud, voice whined from behind Nikolai, interrupting his thoughts, the sound of a basket coming up behind him.

"What could you possibly want now?" a bored voice demanded as Nikolai turned to look towards the voices behind him.

While musing over the situation with Adrian, Nikolai had wandered in front of the garden fence isle and across from it were two boys in the kitchen appliance section.

Nikolai felt like something was missing and when he looked around he found that Adrian had unsurprisingly wandered off. Sighing he directed his attention towards the paint cleaner he needed for his own garden fence, while the conversation the two boys were having filtered into his thoughts.

A gangly college student was pointing excitedly to a ridiculously bright, orange set of kitchen cabinets, "Look, look! They're so colorful! Could we buy these to replace your old ones?"

The shorter boy, who'd been called Arthur, looked at them in distaste replying, "They weren't old cabinets Alfred seeing as how I just bought them last month. It was nice of you to want to make me breakfast in bed but I don't ever want you using my kitchen again."

Alfred grinned, showing that he'd been told this before, "But it's not like I meant for them to get destroyed! Besides I thought I was very heroic calling the fire station when the fire got out of hand. Because of my quick reflexes I totally saved the day and kept the damage to only the kitchen!"

"Don't treat it so lightly! You could of injured Flying Mint Bunny!" Arthur snapped, obviously peeved at the other boy's response.

Alfred's grin widened even further and he wrapped his arm around Arthur, "Awww! You're so cute when you mention your imaginary friends! I'm sorry I almost hurt him but I'm making up for it right? I'm rebuilding your kitchen for you."

Arthur blushed fiercely and squirmed out of Alfred's arms, "Get off you prick! We need to finish shopping." he paused a moment before adding, "And no we aren't getting those ridiculous cabinets."

Nikolai sighed. This town kept getting weirder and weirder.

"Nikolai?" Adrian's voice sounded throughout the department store, effectively silencing the conversation Nikolai had unintentionally been eavesdropping on.

The two characters in the cabinet section turned to look at Nikolai in confusion, obviously wondering where the cry had come.

Nikolai blushed and turned away, slightly embarrassed to realize he'd been staring at the two men oddly for a bit. Adrian's voice came again and Nikolai began contemplating the best way possible for him to get out of the store and leave Adrian behind.

'Seriously? Yelling in the middle of the store. This is just embarrassing,' Nikolai thought bitterly, beginning to push his basket in the opposite direction of where he assumed Adrian's voice was coming from. But it was Adrian's loud voice, and he was shouting in a hardware store so it was bound to echo. Nikolai just had to guess.

Adrian appeared in front of him right as he turned the corner into an isle. He was breathing hard and his face was a little bit red. Nikolai's heart jumped in fear as he wondered if Ivan had caused this. Was he here in the store? Nikolai had left his cell phone in the car. Shit.

"Adrian, what's wrong?" Nikolai asked, genuine concern and fear coming into his voice as the other male doubled over in attempt to catch his breath.

Adrian took a few more heavy breaths before standing back up straight.

The first thing Nikolai noticed aside from his bright smile was the thing he was clutching in his hands. It was brown and furry and if it was a rat Nikolai was going to start shanking people, starting with Adrian.

"What the fuck is that?" Nikolai demanded flatly, not ever bothering to cover up his frustration with the fact that he'd been genuinely worried about Adrian and it was for nothing. Well, it was for the furry ball in his hands, which Nikolai still hadn't been able to decipher.

Adrian thrust out his hands towards Nikolai, causing the slightly shorter of the two to take a step back in surprise and slight fear of what he was being shown.

Nikolai calmed down immediately when a tiny mewl came from the small fur blob.

"I found a kitten! It was hiding behind some plants. Isn't it sooo cute?" Adrian said, his voice, for whatever reason, decibels higher than it usually was.

Nikolai's face was blank as he looked at the kitten. It was squirming in Adrian's grasp, trying desperately to get free. It was entirely black, and it's small eyes were still blue showing it was younger than it should have been to be without a mother.

"Did you see it's mom anywhere?" Nikolai asked, still not taking his eyes off the squirming kitten. He felt….sorry for the thing. It look utterly miserable in Adrian's hands.

"No, he was just lying there!" Adrian replied defensively, as if horrified that Nikolai would even suggest he stole a kitten from its mother. "What kind of person do you think I am? He's so cute, Nikolai! Look how cute he is. I'm gonna name him Chesh, like the Cheshire cat. What do you think of it, Nikolai?" Adrian asked, pulling the kitten away from Nikolai and nuzzling his face into its fur.

'That kitten looks violated…' Nikolai thought, feeling sorry for the small furry animal that was lost, then found and was now being subjected to a horrible name and cuddled by a not-so-not-crazy Romanian.

"Adrian, give it some room. You're suffocating it…" Nikolai began slowly, not really knowing what to say as it did make sense to nearly suffocate the kitten in an effort to keep it warm.

Luckily, Adrian ignored the comment "Can we keep him?"

'What else would we do with it, dum-'

"Yes, we can keep him. I need to pay for these and then we can go." Nikolai sighed, looking down at the plants in the basket.

Adrian nodded and the two set out towards the register only to be stopped two seconds later by the sound of someone running towards them.

"Alfred! Get back here! They're busy."

Nikolai turned around to see the taller of the two college kids from earlier running up to them.

"Hey, what're you guys looking at?" he asked, stopping next to Adrian and looking down at the ball of fur in his hands.

"Alfred, get back here. They don't want you bothering them, don't you have any idea of personal space?"

Nikolai thought he was watching Adrian and himself outside of his body. When they were both in college and they both had somehow become blonde.

Adrian wasn't fazed by the appearance of his personality twin. Instead he turned towards the other man and revealed the tiny, mewling kitten he'd moved into his arms so it was held closer to his chest.

"It's a kitten. His name is Chesh, I found him in the plant aisle. Isn't he cute?" Adrian cooed happily.

"Aw, yeah man! That's totally awesome! You can raise it to do tricks and other cute things that cats always do on TV and Youtube and stuff," the boy replied back, genuinely excited by the kitten. He was looking down at it with a look that made Nikolai guess he was wishing he'd found the cat and not Adrian.

"Sorry about that, Alfred's normally calmer than this, he's just had a lot of sugar today. Never should have let him have that milkshake…" a British voice said from next to him.

Nikolai turned to find that the other college kid had moved to stand next to him without Nikolai really noticing. He was watching the kid, who Nikolai guessed was Alfred, with a mix between a slightly amused and annoyed look.

Nikolai was beginning to think he'd gone mad. He stood now in the middle of the dirt aisle next to a short, indecisive Brit watching two hyper and over enthusiastic blondes gush over a lost and found kitten named Chesh.

'God I must be on something,' Nikolai thought as he ignored the Brit's comment and instead chose to address Adrian, who was in the middle of recounting how he'd found his kitten.

"…and then I went down the plant aisle because I thought I saw someone I'm kind of afraid of at the moment and there he was, hiding in a few purple and pink plants. It was quite adorable, I wish I'd taken a picture before I moved her. She's just so cute…." Adrian went on, ignoring Nikolai's start of the sentence: "Adrian, it's time to go."

Adrian finished his story a few seconds later, smiling brightly at the tall American kid talking to him.

Wait….did he just say someone he was afraid of?

A jolt of fear ran through Nikolai. 'No, he couldn't be so daft to not tell me if _he_ was here. Could he?' What if Ivan was here though? What if Adrian had not told him and was just too stupid to remember it. Oh god, what if he was waiting outside for them to return to the car and beat them senseless.

"Adrian…" Nikolai began slowly. Maybe it was the tone of his voice, distant and slightly shaky, or maybe it was just the silence that was already there. But either way, everyone was silent as Nikolai began speaking. Adrian turned towards Nikolai looking confused by Nikolai's tone of voice.

"Adrian, who were you afraid of….?" it wasn't a question, it was a demand. If Adrian said what Nikolai thought he was going to say….

There was a small mewl from the kitten as all eyes moved from Nikolai to Adrian. Alfred and Arthur's both had lost any source of amusement and for the very first time Nikolai saw Adrian's face actually look pale, slightly scared.

"Ah…oh yeah, there um…it was…Ivan. Yeah, he was talking with a friend and I didn't think it would be a good idea to um…let him see me. But I think he left by now, he was just picking up plants." Adrian replied, his voice actually managing to sound quiet and even a bit timid.

A small part of Nikolai's mind that wasn't panicking thought jokingly to remember that tone of voice coming from Adrian because he would never hear it from him again. The rest of his mind had gone nearly completely blank in fear. His entire body had gone cold and he could hear his pulse in his ears.

"Wait, Ivan? Ivan Braginski?" Someone asked. Nikolai realized a few seconds later that it was Alfred who'd spoken. He wasn't honestly surprised though. Ivan was the type of person to pick on college kids like these two.

But when Nikolai looked at Arthur, he didn't see an upset look that he guessed he would see on the face of a bullied college kid or his boyfriend. It was a look of anger and even annoyance.

Alfred just looked angry, a brilliant contrast between the extreme happiness he'd been showing earlier.

"Yeah, the tall Russian?" Adrian answered Alfred after a few moments of silence.

"Why are you afraid of him?" Arthur asked Adrian sharply, showing he was not taking this lightly in the least.

"There was ahm…a…er…" Adrian began slowly, obviously struggling with how much he was supposed to tell the two of them.

"I was dating his sister and I…um…we broke up. He got involved and things went down and then….." Nikolai cut in, not wanting Adrian to trip up the entire story for the two college kids.

Both Alfred and Arthur were quiet for a moment, holding each other's gaze with expressions Nikolai couldn't read.

After a while Arthur spoke. His voice was stiff sounding, almost like he was suppressing another emotion other than calmness.

"I'm not going to ask for any further elaboration as we are complete strangers, however, Ivan Braginski is an extremely dangerous man; the son of the head of the Russian mafia in New England in fact."

Nikolai's heart jumped into his throat as Arthur spoke, confirming Nikolai's initial suspicions about Ivan.

'Oh god, my family is so dead.'

"But don't fret. Alfred and I can escort you two to your car." Arthur added noticing Nikolai's incredibly pale and extremely frightened look.

"Yeah! That commie ass-hat won't bother you guys when he sees us with you. You see his dad and my dad-'

"Alfred!"

Alfred shut up immediately at Arthur's outburst, blushing a bit as he just let his unfinished sentence hang.

"Anyway, let's get you guys and your new friend here checked out and on your ways home, shall we?" Arthur said before beginning to walk off coolly towards the cash registers at the front of the store.

Alfred followed Arthur, catching up easily with his long legs. The two of them fell into a hushed conversation as they walked in front of Adrian and Nikolai; Nikolai pushing the basket and Adrian cradling Chesh as they followed.

"So where do you two go to school?" Arthur asked Nikolai curiously as Alfred and Adrian began unloading plants onto the check out counter.

"The one around here, Hetalia Academy." Nikolai replied quietly. He was still a bit shaken by the entire situation, and found it difficult to believe that he would be safe with the two skinny and slightly scraggly-looking blondes. Ivan was huge, and Nikolai was sure that if he wanted to, he could snap Arthur like a twig. But he still kept calm and he didn't really know why. A tiny part of him wondered if it was the fact that Adrian too had been afraid of Ivan and now Nikolai felt he had to be strong in effort to keep Adrian calm.

A bigger part of his mind told that tinier part that it was insane and didn't belong in his head.

Alfred and Arthur walked them out to the car after that. Adrian and Alfred talking quietly about the new kitten while Nikolai and Arthur trailed them; Nikolai still pushing the basket. No conversation between Arthur and Nikolai continued as they went.

As soon as Nikolai heard the sound of heavy foot falls coming from the shadows near where Adrian had parked his car, his heart jumped.

As soon as he heard the heavy Russian accent, his heart stopped completely

"Well, well Nikolai, Alfred, didn't expect to find my two least favorite people at the same place, da." Ivan said, emerging from the shadows. Nikolai's eyes fell upon the large metal pipe Ivan was towing with him and he felt like he was going to faint.

"Ivan." Arthur said steadily, stepping in front of Nikolai slightly and protectively as he spoke. Nikolai looked at Adrian and realized Alfred was doing the same for him.

"Ivan we both know you're not allowed to come near Alfred right now, so just drop the show; we're not scared." Arthur's voice was dangerously low, as if he was almost challenging Ivan to do something.

"And consider these two with us now, you touch them and we won't even hesitate to destroy you." Alfred added, matching Arthur's tone almost exactly.

That was the second time that Nikolai saw Ivan Braginksi frown. And it was terrifying.

"You're such a stupid American bastard. What do you two think is stopping me from bludgeoning all of your heads in with pipe now, da? What makes you think I don't have my aides at your houses already, recovering your sorry attempts at blackmail?"

"If they were sorry attempts, why are they working?" Arthur retorted sharply before Nikolai could finish processing the last of Ivan's words through his thick accent.

"And the reason you haven't done, or won't do all of those things is because of your pride. You like to play dirty, but in the end to you, a dirty win isn't really a win. You wouldn't want those pictures back unless you've outsmarted us fair and square and retrieved them yourself. You are your own flaw Ivan Braginski, and we know it. So now, we ask you again. Leave us, and these two, alone."

Nobody spoke for a moment. Ivan's smile was completely gone and he seemed at least eight times more scary without it.

'Oh god, he's going to bash our faces in with his pipe. Why would Arthur say something like that? What could he possibly have that could make Ivan unable to act against him?' Nikolai thought panicking.

Ivan laughed after a moment, his smile returning but only in the form of a cruel smirk. "Just look at you Nikolai, all afraid. I'm glad you broke up with Milica, you're so weak it's almost funny."

"Leave him alone." Adrian choked out from where he stood behind Alfred. He didn't sound threatening in the least, and he was still refusing to make eye contact with Ivan or anyone else.

Nikolai felt something in his chest tighten as he watched Adrian attempt to defend him being shit scared while being shit scared himself. It kind of surprised him, why was he feeling this way?

Nikolai didn't get to answer that before Ivan began speaking again.

"Whatever, you two want to burden yourselves with a bunch of pussy ass high school kids, that's fine by me. It's only making you guys seem weaker. And you are weak. One day I will find a way to get you four, especially that stupid Romanian that doesn't know his place." Ivan said finitely, glaring now at Arthur and not even bothering to turn towards Adrian, who had lifted his head defiantly at the comment towards him, but had clamed down when Alfred shot him a cautioning glare.

"Good luck with that Ivan." Alfred said shortly, turning away from Adrian to glare daggers at Ivan.

"Now if you'll excuse us." Arthur said shortly before walking away from Ivan.

It took a moment for Nikolai to control his fear enough to make his legs move and follow Arthur, but once he realized the distance between him and college student was growing it didn't take long. Adrian and Alfred brought up the rear while Adrian walked in front of the American teen.

Nikolai heard Ivan walk away, across the silent parking lot, and was pretty sure everyone else had too.

He was also pretty sure everyone heard the soft 'kolkolkol' laughter coming from behind them as well.

**Hate writing for Russia, he's all like 'bleh' which is actually pretty funny for me to say because I'm Belarus in one of my Hetalia groups. (I'm Romania in the other XD)**

**Oh, and the cat's name...yeah, i cosplayed as the Cheshire cat at ASTL, so it was the first cat that came to mind. *unimaginative*  
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	7. Chapter 7

**Hey! I'm alive. And!, I have a Tumblr (so stop bugging me about it!). I think that should be suitable explanation as to why this chapter took me so long to write when I've been on summer break for five days.**

**Also, be prepared, because I feel like the two chapters after this are going to be INTENSE. So get excited. On another, random, note: I go to camp on the tenth, so when I drop off the face of the planet then…you know why.**

**So, without further ado, enjoy ;)**

"Hey Nikolai, if I found Chesh and you agreed to keep him, does that make us both his parents?" Adrian asked as he waved a string of yarn in front of Chesh's face.

Nikolai paused and turned around towards Adrian, not believing those words had just left his mouth.

"Of course not, are you insane? That's.. weird." Nikolai objected, blushing furiously as he turned around to speak to Adrian.

Nikolai didn't necessarily want to be there at the moment, in Adrian's back yard working on his garden while Adrian played with Chesh behind him. Well, Nikolai did want to be there, but it was who he was here with that was the problem. It had been three hours since Nikolai had started on the new garden, and he was pretty sure Adrian still had yet to stay silent for a full minute, whether it was him cooing at Chesh or firing random questions at Nikolai. The only thing actually keeping the Bulgarian sane at the moment was the methodical planting of flowers. The pattern of dig, plant, cover with dirt was somewhat mesmerizing to him. But even that didn't stop his embarrassment over the question Adrian asked.

'Who the hell asks that kind of thing? Doesn't he know that's awkward?' Nikolai thought.

"How's it weird? Chesh needs a good parent to make up for his traumatic abandonment." Adrian protested, cuddling Chesh to him protectively.

Nikolai watched the small cat meow pititufully while looking up at him.

'God, this thing was worse than Adrian.' Nikolai thought bitterly, referring to how many times he had or been tempted to give into crazy things Adrian asked because of Adrian's adorablenesss.

'Adorableness…?'

"Fine, but you're the mother." Nikolai sighed.

Adrian's entire face lit up after that, and then he began gushing about how awesome of parents they were going to be together and how great of a childhood Chesh would have now that he had new parents that wouldn't leave him.

Nikolai turned back to his gardening because he couldn't help the small smile that spread across his face as he listened to the absurd things Adrian was saying right now.

"…and then, when you graduate from Kitty college you can't become a world renowned musician or something. A meow-sician! Or you could be the purr-esident of the U-meow-ted States of A-Meow-ica! Everyone will love you Chesh, and Nikolai and I will be there to cheer you on the entire way. Or, you could choose an alternate path to college and go into apprenticeship. I don't really know what you would do there. Oh, I know! You could become a meow-gician!…"

Adrian just kept going and going.

Nikolai couldn't help but think for the briefest of moments that it was nice to hear Adrian like this. When Nikolai didn't really have to pay attention to what he was saying in effort to respond appropriately, but could simply just listen to the happiness in his voice. It was strange to him, Nikolai had never admired someone's voice that way before. But he just found himself doing that with Adrian.

Thinking of Adrian's happiness led him to think of last night where Adrian's mood could only be classified as frightened or worried. He'd still managed to stand up for Nikolai, probably digging himself even deeper into a hole in Ivan's opinion, even though it was obvious he too was scared of the unnaturally tall Russian. The ride home after the encounter with Ivan had been quiet. Before they'd left the parking lot, Alfred and Arthur gave them both of their numbers, saying that they needed to hang out more and if Ivan happened to bother them again, to not hesitate to call them. Nikolai thought about that piece of paper with Alfred and Arthur's phone numbers sitting on his dresser. Somehow, it made him feel all the more safer. As a parting goodbye, Alfred promised both the high school students that now that they were on Ivan's bad list, they were his friends. And that meant that he would protect them no matter what.

Nikolai felt calmer after that. He had no idea why, Alfred and Arthur weren't the ideal image of heros. Arthur was thin and stout while Alfred was tall and anything but big, but the way Alfred spoke to them, the infliction in his voice, was enough to make Nikolai sleep comfortably at night. And if Adrian's mood was anything to go off of, he didn't have trouble sleeping last night either.

Nikolai went home after he finished the garden, not thinking too much about what Adrain had told him.

Planting so many flowers had done wonders for his nerves, he felt brilliant. He even found himself whistling in the shower as he washed off all the sweat and dirt he'd gotten on himself while gardening.

Alesander was home, but asleep. He'd stayed out quite late last night with Katyusha. The only reason Nikolai knew he was in the house was because of the car in their garage. Nikolai had thought to tell Alesander about what had happened last night, but found that he couldn't. Alfred and Arthur had made it abundantly clear that everything about last night should stay on the down low. Nikolai didn't know what the college students had to do with Ivan, or why they knew him in the first place, but Nikolai wasn't about to argue with Arthur when he said this.

Besides, even if he did tell Alesander, he knew his brother wouldn't do anything, but that still left the matter of Katyusha. Nikolai trusted his brother with all his heart, but Alesander could be daft at times and something could slip and that could put all of them in an odd situation. And knowing Kat, she'd be so lost on what to do she'd probably start crying.

So Nikolai just kept quiet, deciding this was just something he was going to have to shoulder himself.

The next day went by indolently, Nikolai found himself asleep in random places throughout his house for half the day, and the other half was spent reading outside, surrounded by the plants that were in his garden. He was a little hesitant to go outside at first, he wasn't sure if he could handle three days straight of Adrian, but in the end he just decided to risk it. He stayed outside until it started getting dark and the mosquitoes started biting. As he was leaving, Nikolai couldn't help but wonder where Adrain was. From past experiences he was hardly able to be outside for ten minutes without Adrian appearing out of nowhere.

Nikolai actually didn't see Adrain until the next day at school. He was early to his first hour class since he didn't have to worry about Milica for once and his new locker had been moved so it was right outside of his home room.

Adrian was sleeping when Nikolai came into the classroom, his arms were folded under his head and his hair was in a disarray. He looked utterly exhausted.

'He must've worn himself out with all the excitement he's had for the past few days. I'd be tired to if I've done nothing but smile for the last three days.' Nikolai thought, setting his bag down by his desk before sitting down and getting his book and notebook out. Looking at his notebook reminded Nikolai of the last day of class when Adrian had fervently been taking notes. He had forgotten to ask the blonde about it since it was odd for anyone to take notes in this class unless the teacher demanded it.

Nikolai looked over until he caught sight of the notebook Adrian had been using Friday, it was open, but Adrian's arms and head were resting on top of it.

Never before in Nikolai's life had he been curious about something enough that he considered stealing. All he really wanted to know is why Adrian was taking so many notes, that's all. Nikolai was at a loss as to why it mattered so much to him.

There was a small sigh from Adrian and Nikolai found himself turning his attention away from his notebook to the text book in front of him as Adrian woke up and sat up straight in his seat. The bell rang then, and the teacher came into the classroom shortly afterwards so Adrian had little time to address Nikolai's presence or engage in any type of conversation with him. Thank god.

The rest of the class and the morning went by remarkably quickly, aside from a literature test he'd forgotten about over the weekend. Just as Nikolai was wondering what to do for lunch, (now that Milica had broken up with him he didn't really know where to sit) Adrian caught up with him and pulled him off to a table in the corner of the cafeteria- despite his protests.

The table Adrian led him to had six people sitting around it, two of which Nikolai recognized, Toris and his boyfriend. Six other boys also sat there, one with short blonde hair and glasses who was typing on a keyboard, and one short kid with blonde hair who appeared to be shaking.

An extremely tall man whom Nikolai recognized as the Swedish foreign exchange student sat next to the shaking boy looking straight ahead with a blank expression sat next to a merry looking blonde who was chatting it up with another blonde with wild spikey hair. There was one last person who sat on the other side of the spiky haired kid, he looked bored out of his mind and irritated at the same time. Nikolai liked him the most.

"Nikolai, this is my friend Tino, we met in English. He invited us to sit with him and his friends at lunch." Adrian said, taking a seat next to Tino as he spoke and smiling at Nikolai as he sat down next to the silent and bored looking man.

The merry looking boy whom Nikolai guessed was Tino- guessed because Adrian didn't exactly point him out when he introduced him...idiot- turned towards Nikolai when he heard his name and waved.

"Moi moi, Adrian's told me all about you. You guys are welcome to sit with us for the rest of the year." Tino said happily.

"Yeah, it's kind of like the foreign kids' table." the spiky haired guy said, leaning back in his chair to talk to Nikolai so the bored looking man wasn't in the way. "I'm Mathias by the way, totally king of the table." he added, holding out his hand to Nikolai.

Nikolai shook it awkwardly before the bored looking guy turned towards him.

"He's full of shit, don't listen to a word he says. My name is Lukas."

Lukas didn't offer a hand shake or anything, he just said his name and turned away.

"This is Berwald," Tino explained, gesturing towards the Swede sitting next to him, "he doesn't talk a lot because his accent is hard to understand, but he's pretty great in the end." Tino said.

Mathias scrunched up his nose and made a disgusted noise "Eww, stop flirting with him in public, people are trying to eat." he whined.

If Nikolai had blinked he would have missed Lukas's hand reach up and smack the back of Mathias's head hard enough to send the others face into his jell-o.

"Anyway," Tino said, giving a pathetic excuse for a glare to Mathias and blushing a bit on top of that before continuing, " this is Eduardo, Ravias, Toris and Felicks."

Eduardo waved without even looking up from his computer, Ravias offered a small smile as did Toris while Felicks just stared at Nikolai and Adrian for a few seconds before looking back at Tino with a look that almost appeared accusing.

"Relax Felicks." Toris said to his boyfriend, noticing his look.

Nikolai must have looked worried because Tino offered an explanation a little later.

"Felicks just doesn't like new people, but it's something he's going to have to get over." Tino sighed, showing this wasn't the first time they'd encountered Felicks' reluctance towards new people.

Nikolai just nodded.

"I wonder where Feli and Ludwig went, they did just go to get lunch right?" Mathias asked, looking up from where he had begun building towers out of salt packets.

"I dunno, the two disappear every so often to the janitors room, people are going to start thinking they live in there." Ravias said. He sounded almost nervous to be speaking. Nikolai wondered what the hell was wrong with him.

"Ludwig stayed behind last hour to talk with Feli and his teacher about dissecting frogs tomorrow. It seems that Feli broke down in tears just watching the tutorial." Lukas explained boredly before going back to his staring contest with the napkin holder.

There was a silence then that fell over the table then, apparently complete silence was normal because no one broke it for a good five minutes.

"What are we going to do tomorrow? I wanna go out, can we go to the Francis' club again?" Felicks asked the table in general.

Nikolai had completely forgotten about the day off they had on Tuesday, which meant tonight wasn't a school night.

"Sure. Feli already said he wanted to go. I'll call Francis after school." Tino said with a nod.

"Adrian, Nikolai, you guys want to come?" Toris asked, leaning forward so he could see past Felicks to speak.

"Sure, I'll come." Adrian said cheerfully, his face looked utterly ecstatic.

Nikolai paused before answering. Was he supposed to say yes? But he didn't really want to go. This sounded like a club, what if there was alcohol. Was he being a wimp? This was probably his only chance to get an actual group of friends...but what if he ruined his chances tonight by doing something stupid?

Nikolai glanced over at Adrian, who was sitting with his head resting against the back of his head, propping it up.

'He still looks tired.' Nikolai noted off handedly. A second later Adrian's eyes snapped up and met his, reminding Nikolai the entire table, with the exception of Eduardo, was waiting for his answer.

"Ah, yeah, sure I'll go too." Nikolai said, dropping Adrian's gaze and looking at the table. It took him a moment, but he realized that the growing heat in the room wasn't because it was hot but because he was beginning to blush. Why was he blushing?

'Shit, I must be getting sick.' Nikolai thought, refusing to put further thought into the situation.

"Great! We could always use more people. I'll text you guys the address." Tino replied, flashing a friendly smile at Nikolai .

Lunch went by quickly after that. Nikolai never got to meet Ludwig of Feliciano. The way people were talking about them at the table though kind of made Nikolai wonder if he really was missing out on that much.

Nikolai found out that Mathias and him actually had biology together and Tino had history with him. It was odd in the end, not having a feeling of utter lonlieness and misery being in a class and being forced to pay attention to a lecture out of sheer amount of nothing else to do and no one to talk to. In the end, Nikolai realized while talking to Tino in history about the good restaurants around the area, that he didn't mind talking to people all that much as long as they weren't over the top and excited about everything 'cough cough Adrian cough cough.' Nikolai realized that for the first time in a long time he was developing a group of friends.

**Okay, Woot! Sorry it's short but… Nikolai has friends! I wonder where this will take him. And sorry for the entirely uncreative name for the club…but you can expect some Grandpa Rome next chapter :3**

**In case you didn't know:**

**Eduardo- Estonia**

**Mathias- Denmark**

**Tino-Finland**

**Berwald-Sweden**

**Lukas-Norway**

**Ludwig- Germany**

**Feli-Italy**

**Ravias-Latvia**

**Toris-Lithuania**

**Felicks-Poland**

**Alfred-America**

**Arthur- England (and I stress England because Britan implies that it is Scotland and Wales and when you say USXUK it implies America is sleeping not only with Englad but with Scotland,Ireland, Wales, North Ireland and all of the other things that make up the United Kingdom.)**

**Find me on Tumblr…its under the same name as mine here; Saerus2665 ****J **


	8. Chapter 8

**Okay Lovlies, here's this….*ducks out of the way of thrown book* **

**I am sorry! I got busy and had to go to camp! Don't hate me! **

**Sorry for taking a decade to update, hopefully the next chapter wont take so long….**

**Hope you enjoy…**

**Disclaimer: I don't like...own Hetalia.**

The whistle of the subway train faded as it rolled out of the Huntsville station.

"So how was your day today?" Adrian asked, falling into step next to Nikolai.

Nikolai looked up at Adrian spoke, the sound of his voice surprising him a bit. Nikolai hadn't expected to hear anything out of the Romanian; he hadn't said anything since they left the school that afternoon… that might've been because Adrian had fallen fast asleep by the second out of ten stations they'd stopped by on the train ride home.

Nikolai wondered briefly for the third time that day why Adrian was so tired. Was he always like this? Nikolai didn't know the answer to that, he'd only known Adrian for four days. The guy could be a psychopath for all he knew. Nikolai also wondered why Adrian didn't get off at the Bethalto station today like he had on Friday.

'Idiot probably did get off at the wrong station the other day,' Nikolai thought, satisfying his curiosity.

"It was as good as school can get I suppose." Nikolai replied to Adrian's question, having forgot for a few seconds that he'd asked it. Nikolai surprised himself with the casualness of his tone. Did he always talk to people like this? Or was this a new thing?

Nikolai realized that this _was_ a new thing, having casual conversations with people other than Alesander, and it was yet another bitter reminder how pathetic his social life had been for the past few years.

'My god, what has this boy done to me?' Nikolai demanded to himself, shocked about how much he'd changed over the course of a few days.

Adrian began to talk about his day the way he usually did, rambling and elaborating on things that others would usually find unimportant; like the sticky notes he'd found in the bathroom telling people that they were beautiful. Adrian had apparently liked that.

Nikolai nodded in agreement to Adrian's comment that there needed to be more people like that in the world.

Again, Nikolai was confused by his response. Since when did he start having faith in humanity?

A small voice in the back of his mind answered that question with 'Friday' and Nikolai found himself unable to conjure a disagreement.

Adrian was still rambling, this time about how he'd gotten lost in the school and how Tino had come to find him when he realized he was missing.

Nikolai's gaze wandered unintentionally off the road over to Adrian as the boy talked. Nikolai took in the small smile that Adrian always wore when he rambled, and the way the gold from the setting sun made the blonde color in his hair shine, and the red in his eyes stand out even more.

Nikolai suddenly caught himself staring and quickly snapped his gaze back to the sidewalk, embarrassed and trying to rid his mind of all thoughts about Adrian that had decided to take up residence there.

'You've only known him for four days,' Nikolai reminded himself bitterly, watching the cracks in the sidewalk disappear beneath him as he walked. 'you hardly even know him yet.'

But something in the back of Nikolai's mind told him that four days was long enough.

Long enough for what?

"Nikolai?… Nikolai!" Adrian's voice drifted into Nikolai's thoughts a while later, forcing him to realize he'd been zoned out for a while. Zoned out on thought regrettably about Adrian.

"Yes, what do you want?" Nikolai sighed, trying to keep his voice from accidentally sounding as flustered as he felt at the moment.

Adrian laughed a bit, realizing he'd just dragged Nikolai out of thought space. "Spacey much?' Adrian joked "I asked if you were excited for tonight."

Nikolai looked at Adrian in a brief moment of confusion before remembering Tino and the other's offer at lunch.

Nikolai thought over if he really wanted to go to that. It sounded questionable, especially because of the fact it was a club. While he was sure Tino wouldn't be leading him to a strip club, he still had his doubts. What if there was alcohol there or something?

Nikolai had tried alcohol once and that was when Alesander had given it to him. Nikolai still didn't remember all of the experience, his brother had said he was drunk off the smell before he even tried the liquid.

Needless to say Nikolai really hadn't had any desire to try it again, and the fact that there was a possibility for it tonight added to his already growing nerves about the whole thing. That and the fact he might be alone in the middle of the city with a Russian after his blood.

"You are still coming aren't you?" Adrian asked suspiciously, breaking Nikolai's concentration again. He'd forgotten again that Adrian was waiting for an answer.

Nikolai let out a strained sigh, "I don't know if we should go…" he began before taking in Adrian's slightly confused look, obviously put off by the 'we' in that sentence. 'I-I mean there's still that whole Ivan thing going on. Shouldn't we be lying low and waiting for things to calm down?" Nikolai asked, hating how worried and weak he was sounding at the moment, but he was still honestly worried about the whole situation. He just couldn't see how Adrian was _not!_

Oh man, what if Adrian thought he was being a total wimp and just went without him, then made new friends and realized how much of a loser Nikolai was?

'Why does that bother you!' Nikolai demanded of himself suddenly, astounded that he'd just had that thought. Did he really care that much about Adrian's opinion.

'Yes.'

Adrian was looking at Nikolai now with an unreadable expression. Those five seconds of silence had to be one of the most agonizing seconds Nikolai had ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

Finally Adrian looked away from him, a large and carefree smile coming across his face.

"Is it totally insane that I don't really want to care about that?' Adrian asked, turning his gaze to the row of town houses that had appeared at the end of their street.

"What?" Nikolai found himself demanding from the blonde, astounded he was saying such a thing when he'd reacted the way he did to seeing Ivan in the parking lot. How could someone not care about Ivan? Ivan was terrifying!

"I mean, yeah he scares me. But the more I think about the situation, the more I realize that might just be how he wants it. I mean, if I was a crazy mafia person I would want my victims to be afraid of everything. I would want them to live their lives in such fear that they're not really living at all. That would be more pain to them than anything I could inflict; the inability to live because of fear." Adrian said, using a rather light sounding voice for the severity of words he was saying.

Nikolai froze and was speechless. He had never expected something that deep to come out of Adrian. Ever.

His mind began to process Adrian's words, realizing how much sense they made as he did so.

Since when did Adrian become a fucking expert in translating the actions of the psychotic? This further added to the bitter fact that he did indeed have very little knowledge of Adrian and his personality.

"I never thought about it that way…" Nikolai admitted quietly, not knowing what else he could say to that.

"I mean, it makes sense when you think about it." Adrian stated with a shrug, to which Nikolai nodded.

"So that's just something for you to think about. You don't have to come tonight if you don't want to, but I want you to come." Adrian replied as the pair of them walked through the gate to the lawn of the townhouses.

Nikolai's heart jumped in his chest at the last part of Adrian's sentence, followed quickly by his annoyed confusion.

'What in the actual fuck!' Nikolai demanded after calming himself.

"I don't know, I'll think about it okay? What time are you leaving?" Nikolai replied, walking up the front steps to his house before looking back at Adrian.

The Romanian was looking at him with a positively bewildered expression on his face, making Nikolai feel like there was a giant spider climbing up the back of his shirt or something. What was that look for? Had he said something?

Adrian, after a few seconds just shook his head and then beamed at Nikolai "I'm leaving around seven. If you want to come with just meet me outside my garage, okay?"

Nikolai paused for a moment, unable to stop himself from thinking how perfect that smile was. He caught himself beginning to stare again and looked away, nodding quickly before unlocking his door and ducking into his house, a blush forming across his face the entire time.

That time Adrian had caught him staring.

'Dammit.'

"Hey Niky, how was your day? It's nice to see you haven't been killed by any crazy Russians." Alesander greeted as Nikolai came and closed the front door behind him.

Alesander was sitting on the couch in his sweatpants and a t-shirt, watching some reality TV show.

Nikolai rolled his eyes at his brothers comment, annoyed that Alesander, just like Adrian, was taking this entire Ivan situation so lightly.

Was Nikolai the only sane one around here?

"What are you doing home? Don't you usually work late on Mondays?" Nikolai asked, dropping his bag by the door and going to the kitchen.

Nikolai was less than pleased to see that Alesander still had yet to fix the cabinet in the kitchen. Maybe if he beat his brother with the thing he would get the hint.

'Hmm, tempting.' Nikolai thought to himself, eyeing the broken door for a tad bit too long for that thought to be just a joke.

"Yeah, but I asked to come home early today so I could be here when you got home." Alesander answered from the living room.

'So you had time to fix the cabinet.' Nikolai thought bitterly, choosing against starting up that particular argument. He was too tired for it anyway.

"Why?" Nikolai questioned instead as he got a glass from the cabinet without a door and went to go fill it up with water.

"Why not? Do you hate seeing me that much?" Alesander questioned.

Nikolai rolled his eyes at his brother obnoxiousness as he filled up his glass and shut off the faucet before returning to the living room to look skeptically at his brother. A thought had struck him. Alesander usually never really cared what Nikolai thought about spending time with him. Usually the older Bulgarian would enforce quality brother/brother time by sitting on Nikolai on the couch until the younger agreed to stay downstairs and watch a movie or something with him. Why the sudden change?

"What?" Alesander demanded, taking in Nikolai's skeptical glare.

Then it clicked.

"Kat's here isn't she?" Nikolai stated more than asked, walking over to his backpack and putting it back over his shoulder so he could bring it upstairs. "Did you even go to work today?" Nikolai added, taking in Alesander's outfit of a t-shirt and sweatpants.

Alesander frowned immediately, the first cue that Nikolai's guess had been right. If he had gone to work Alesander would have retorted with something smart like 'Did you even go to _school_ today. Or did _you_ go to work today?' The rest of the conversation after that didn't really matter to Nikolai.

"Why would you say that? Of course I went to work. What do you think I am, some sort of bum?"

"That's exactly what I think you are" Nikolai replied honestly without batting an eyelash, before turning and heading upstairs.

"Hey! I earn all the money around here!" Alesander protested, turning to look at Nikolai as he disappeared upstairs, "Where are you going?"

"My room." Nikolai replied, not casting a look back at his brother.

"Alright, nice talking to you…" Alesander said, sounding a little passive aggressive with that last statement. Nikolai could hardly care less. He had more important things to do than apologize to his brother for calling him a bum.

Nikolai walked down the hallway to his new room, ignoring the fact that the light was on in his old room and how it would probably be polite to go say 'hi' to the newest person staying in his house.

Nikolai really wasn't in the mood to be polite. He just kept walking in a straight line towards his room at the end of the hallway.

Once Nikolai got to his room he was faced with the ultimate decision of the night; which window to open to give his plants some sunshine.

Nikolai had no idea why he was even considering the option of opening the one facing the window Adrian had appeared in earlier. Hadn't he already decided that he didn't want to talk to Adrian more than he had to? He had, but for some odd reason his mind was refusing to allow him to cast away that option.

'But what if he sees that it's open and wants to talk again for hours?' Nikolai thought to himself as he set his bag down in his desk chair and his glass of water on the desk.

That stupid voice in the back of his mind replied almost immediately with 'what if he does?'

Nikolai groaned as he stood there debating for a few more seconds before walking over to the window facing Adrian's house and throwing it open. He picked up his plants and set them on the ledge outside so they could have their sunlight before taking his glass of water and pouring the last of the liquid over the plants.

Nikolai couldn't help the small sinking feeling in his chest when he looked across the gap in between his house and Adrian's and found the parallel window closed.

'Damn, WHY DO YOU CARE?' Nikolai demanded, frustrated with himself for feeling things without his permission.

Damn, this was puberty all over again.

Instead of dwelling on his confusing mind and thoughts, Nikolai decided that five hour gaps in which he was being forced to make decisions in were a perfect time to begin reading books that had been assigned for school.

Nikolai walked back over to his backpack and pulled out his worn copy of the book his literature teacher had given him before walking over and flopping onto his bed with it, ignoring the loud creak his bed gave from the sudden weight.

Nikolai jumped awake suddenly, his book falling out his hands and onto the floor as he quickly looked around his room in slight panic.

Finding nothing, Nikolai then resorted to wondering what the hell just woke him up as he picked his book up off the floor.

He had honestly tried reading; he'd gotten pretty far, page twenty, before he'd fallen asleep.

Nikolai folded the corner of a page down before looking up and out his open window again. He was once again confused by the disappointment he felt when he realized the window was still shut. Nikolai supposed he should shut his own window now that it was dark outside.

"What time is it?" Nikolai muttered to himself as he got to his feet and went over to his window, pulling out his phone to check the time.

'6:43.'

Nikolai pulled his plants off the window ledge before closing the window shut and setting his plants back on the floor in front of the window.

'Why do I feel like I have somewhere I need to be?' Nikolai thought to himself as he walked over to his closet and opened the door with an intention to change into something more comfortable than the clothes he'd worn to school today.

As Nikolai was digging through the pile of clothes in the floor of his closet, he suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be deciding if he wanted to go out tonight.

"Urgh, I can't believe I forgot about that." Nikolai thought, annoyed with himself.

Nikolai stopped digging through his clothes pile and stood up straight to think. He weighed his pros against his cons. Pros being he had the chance to actually go out and hang out with friends; something he hadn't done in a really really long time. Cons being the fact that there was also this crazy Russian probably out for his blood, that he could run into on the street.

'The sensible thing to do would be to stay at home.' Nikolai thought simply to himself, hoping that would just finalize his differing opinions and settle the internal battle he was having.

However as that same disappointed sinking feeling he'd felt before because of the closed window came sneaking back, Nikolai realized that sensibility really had nothing to do with this decision.

"Damn it." Nikolai muttered, knowing he'd already made up his mind before he'd even started thinking about it.

"I have a feeling I'm going to regret this." Nikolai muttered to himself, quickly changing into a clean pair of jeans and grabbing his phone and wallet before leaving his room and heading downstairs.

"Good evening Sleeping Beauty" Alesander called teasingly to Nikolai as he came down the stairs, "Have a good nap?" Alesander added turning to face his younger brother as he spoke.

Katyusha had apparently come downstairs during Nikolai's naptime and was now sitting on the couch next to Alesander, smiling cheerfully up at Nikolai.

"Hi Kat. Hey, is it okay with you two if I go out tonight?" Nikolai asked, ignoring Alesander's question as he found his extra sweatshirt in the front closet and switching it out for the one he'd worn to school today.

Nikolai didn't have to look at Alesander's face to know that he was shocked, just the mere silence that filled the room after Nikolai spoke let him know that both elders were stunned by the request.

"Wher-where are you going?" Alesander asked, obviously bewildered why his hermit of a brother was suddenly going out so often.

"Just out with Adrian. We have the day off tomorrow so we're meeting some friends…" Nikolai said, stopping himself because even he realized how weird it sounded for those words to be coming out of his mouth.

Had he just used friend in it's plural form when talking about himself?

The three of them just stayed in an awkward silence for a few seconds, both Katyusha and Alesander shocked into silence and Nikolai not knowing what else to say.

Finally Alesander nodded a bit, snapping both of them back into reality.

"Yeah, just be back by… one. Don't do drugs or anything like…that." Alesander said, his look turning kind of skeptical.

"I promise I'm not doing any drugs. I'll leave that to our neighbors." Nikolai said in reference to the strange fumes everyone could occasionally smell coming from their Dutch neighbor's house.

Alesander nodded, pressing his lips together to keep his face from going back to it's former shocked appearance. Apparently he had realized it was a bit rude to be shocked that someone had friends.

"Alright…I'm going to go now…" Nikolai said, looking at his phone for the time and seeing that it was 6: 52.

Alesander nodded awkwardly again.

"Have fun, Nikolai." Katyusha said, giving him a smile.

Nikolai nodded before heading out the front door to go meet Adrian.

Adrian was waiting by his car like he said he would be. His entire face just lit up when he saw Nikolai, obviously he hadn't been expecting the Bulgarian to show up.

"We're going to have so much fun tonight!" Exclaimed, throwing up his arms as he opened his garage. "I'm so excited. Although I am a little nervous leaving Chesh at home alone. This is his first time alone at night. I hope he behaves himself. Linus will probably keep him in check. The two of them are so cute together. Chesh always wants to play and Linus is old and he just sits there like 'urgh I hate you and I'm fat and blech" and then Chesh just sits there and stares at him until he gets up and plays with him. It's super cute. It reminds me of when Linus was…" Adrian kept talking as he walked over to the driver's side of the car and unlocked the door for Nikolai.

Nikolai couldn't help but wonder what he'd gotten himself into by agreeing to go with Adrian tonight.

As Adrian pulled out of his garage and headed down the road, Nikolai let his eyes wonder outside.

It was a pretty night tonight, a full moon. Nikolai loved full moons. He didn't know why, but he guessed it had something to do with the fact that it slightly amused him that the moon tried so hard to light up the world like the sun did.

"Nikolai? Nikolai!" Adrian's voice came again, pulling Nikolai out of thought for the second time that day. "Are you feeling okay? Are you always this out of it?" Adrian joked with a laugh.

'Only when you're around…' Nikolai thought to himself without missing a beat.

**So again…sorry… for the long update…**

**Also, sorry if this chapter doesn't seem like a whole lot; I just wanted to write in a part where Nikolai realizes he has feelings for Adrian.**

**But we get to go clubbing next chapter! Get excited!**


	9. AUTHOR's NOTE

Author's Note:

A yeah….so…hi….Anyway, sorry If this got your hopes up as a chapter…it's not…Chapter ten is actually in a still running maintenance probably about halfway done. I'm sorry for that, by the way. It's just taking me so long to write the stupid thing, urgh!

So, I'm just apologizing here. I'm also saying, if your checking for my update every day, you may want to like…stop… It's going to be a while.

On the other hand, thank you- all of you- so much for still keeping up and favorating this story, which is exactly why I haven't stopped writing it yet. You guys are awesome and totally deserve a better author than me.

I'm aiming for chapter ten to be up by the end of November, but please to don't count too heavily on it. It is Thanksgiving break soon, I should have a bit of downtime, but I don't really know what will happen there.

Again, to recap:

I'm sorry I'm a piece of crap

I love you guys very much

This story is not done for

I will try to update by the end of November

Thanks so much for reading and reviewing you guys, I honestly love you all.

-Saerus


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